Reference Point
by MindfulWrath
Summary: A more graphic twist on the events of Twilight Town prior to Sora's resurrection. However, not everything goes as Diz- or the Organization- had planned...
1. The Sensation of Breaking

Something broke or bent or twisted, and then--

Roxas awoke suddenly in his own room, in his bed by the big window that let in a draft despite everything he ever did to fix it. The loose spring in his matress nudged him

conspiratorially in the ribs, and he rolled over with a grumble of complaint. The dream. What had he dreamed?

Warm sunlight was flooding in through his window and, unable to sleep or to remember anything save haze and colors from his dream, he sat up and undid the latch, opening his room

to the cool morning air. Not that morning was anything special, and not that noon would ever come; the sun in Twilight Town stayed close to the horizon, as though there were some

sort of bully squatting firmly on the zenith of the sky and the earth itself were worth some protection. A coy little breeze played in Roxas' bangs, amusing itself in making them dance

about his eyes. The dream. Something important. Something he ought not to forget.

Below him, he could see someone waving; it took his drowsy eyes a few moments to make out the figure of Olette, and his sleep-smogged brain a few more moments to recognize her

as his friend. He waved back, receeded back inside his room, and closed the window. The breeze sighed with mild regret as he took away its plaything. He turned to his room and saw a

girl, a girl in white, a blonde girl, who was smiling at him and screaming on the inside.

"Who are you?" he demanded, but then something broke or bent or twisted; something changed, and then the breeze sighed with mild regret as he took away its plaything. He turned

to his room and echoed the breeze's sigh as he dressed, the same as he always did. All of his clothes were almost identical. He scarcely bothered tying his shoes, slid on his rings and

wristband, ran his cold fingers through his unruly hair and headed out to meet Pence and Olette; Hayner was still not talking to him, because of the man in black.

The man in black. He was sure, he was so sure. That's where the money had gone. The man in black had taken it. Had, for some reason, wanted to keep them away from the beach. Had

given him that wrenching feeling in his gut which he knew, by now, meant that no one else had seen him. Had spoken four words which had haunted Roxas' every waking moment since.

Outside, the brisk air forced him to turn his face back to reality as Olette greeted him, the same way she always did.

"Roxas! Hey! Come on, Pence is waiting down at the Sandlot, he said there's something going on with the Struggle, or something...well, you know, it's Pence, you can't understand half

of what he says."

"Yeah." said Roxas, who was beginning to wonder if he understood what anyone said. "You go ahead, I'll catch up."

"Is this about Hayner? Because, if it is, you're way overreacting. He's just like that, okay? He's probably not even mad at you anymore. Now come _on!_ You have a Struggle to win!"

"Yeah," said Roxas, and followed her, with the sensation of breaking.


	2. The White Wraiths

He was wounded. Badly, perhaps mortally. He was bleeding wickedly on the gleaming black floor, no longer alive enough to pretend, to resist the encroaching darkness, scarcely able to

breathe. He was dragging himself, one-armed, across the polished surface of the little platform, towards the stairs where lay a girl, and she was crying and could not see him as he

struggled towards her, dying foot by agonizing foot. She looked up, and her face was familiar, and he spoke, saying--

He awoke with a start again in his own bed, again, but this time in the dark. He stared upward, at the shadows which coated his ceiling in thick, velvet sheets.

"Another dream about him," he mused. Unconsciously, he pressed a shaking hand to the warmth of his chest, wherein he could feel--

Blinking, Roxas sat up slowly, shading his eyes from the morning sun streaming rambunctiously in through his window. He put a hand to his heart--a beat, too quick, but there. Strange.

He could have been sure. But a dream. It had to have been a dream. His heart was beating now, and if, for a moment, he had felt something of reality twist sharply, like a neck breaking,

then . . . well, that was part of awakening from a dream, wasn't it?

That boy, from his dream--he was so familiar that Roxas felt as though the boy might be his brother--had been trying to say something, trying to tell him something, and just for a

moment, Roxas had seen his own face, streaked with blood and tears and sweat and grime, his own hand clawing across the marble floor as he struggled to Kairi's side.

"Kairi?" Roxas said. "Who's Kairi?"

No one answered.

Shrugging, he stood and stretched, clicking his teeth at the memory that the Struggle was that day, and that he would probably have to fight Hayner, who still hadn't forgiven him.

Roxas could picture the contest as clearly as though it had already happened; he would fight to the semifinals, go up against Hayner, remain unforgiven and lose... but of course, he

would just have to see. Rubbing his sore shoulder and wondering where the bruise on his shin had come from, Roxas got dressed and headed for the Sandlot.

As he walked down the deserted, gold-lit streets, he began to get the distinct feeling that something was amiss. His pace slowed, he stopped, looked around. There was no one there.

He could have sworn that someone was watching him, that he'd heard footsteps that were not his echoing behind him. He shook his head and convinced himself that he hadn't slept

enough.

There it was again--! Roxas spun on his heel, eyes narrowed, nearly losing his balance.

"Chill out, Roxas." he said to himself softly. "You're jumping at shadows."

He continued on his way, still hearing the odd echo, still wondering where everyone was. Probably at the Struggle arena already. It was only the biggest event in Twilight Town. Roxas

could remember last year's as though it were yesterday; he'd lost, but not by much, to Seifer. He'd never quite recovered from the embarrassment. Roxas rolled his shoulder and winced.

He was probably late. That was the way this day was going.

And yet, as he approached the sandlot, he couldn't hear anything but his own breathing, footsteps, and the strange echo they each had. A light wind tousled his hair. Not even a

murmur from the Struggle arena... odd, it should have been teeming with spectators by that time. Roxas turned the corner.

They were all milling about, talking excitedly, gesturing, pointing, warming up, stretching. The noise hit Roxas like a tsunami, and he had to stop for a moment and catch his balance

against a wall. It was as though none of it had existed until the moment he'd turned the corner.

"Hey, Roxas, wimping out already?" Seifer asked, stopping to stand across from Roxas, arms akimbo, smirking.

"You wish." Roxas retorted, pushing himself from the wall to stare Seifer down from his full height--which was difficult, because Seifer was a good two inches taller than him.

"Tough talk, from a loser." Seifer said, and laughed. Roxas' fist clenched.

"You just wait." he replied.

"Seifer's not scared of anybody, y'know?"

Roxas rolled his eyes; just what he needed, Rai the Flunky coming along to add to his embarrassment. "Leave me alone." he said.

"See you on the stage, loser." Seifer said, laughed, punched Roxas in the shoulder, and left with his groupies. Roxas watched him go with murder in his eyes.

"Roxas! Hey!"

Roxas turned, startled out of his grim reflections by Olette's cheery call. "Hey." he said.

"Seifer giving you trouble again? Oh well, don't worry about it, the tournament's about to start. C'mon, you still have to register!"

Roxas allowed himself to be dragged off to the judge, swimming in a sea of deja vu. He could swear this exact same conversation had happened before, in the exact same place, at the

exact same time.

He registered with the referee, got his official Struggle bat and ticket and his first match assignment. Great. Fujin, another one of Seifer's flunkies. And a girl. It wasn't fair, how he had to

fight girls in the Struggle. He felt as though he ought to feel a little bad about winning. But he never did.

The day passed in a blur. Next thing he knew, he was facing off against Hayner after having beaten Fujin and a few others. It was strange, how he'd known them all his life, but he

couldn't pull their names to mind.

"Hey Roxas." Hayner said. Roxas looked up across the arena at him, startled. "I'm gonna win that trophy for us."

Roxas blinked.

"I'm serious. And if you beat me--which you won't--you better beat everyone else, too. We're getting that trophy."

Roxas nodded; all was, evidently, forgiven.

The whistle blew. He and Hayner went for each other. Roxas got in the first hit, Hayner the second--it landed squarely on Roxas's shin and threw him off-balance, causing him to land

heavily on his shoulder. He was on his feet again in an instant, a red haze filling his vision. A few more blows exchanged, parried, countered, blocked. The bat was swinging, Hayner was

not going to dodge in time. It caught him squarely on the jaw; Roxas saw his eyes roll back in his head as he fell. The whistle blew again. Roxas stood panting over his fallen friend.

There was cheering, but Roxas heard it as though from underwater. He was staring at Hayner's face; blank, the mouth a little open, eyes closed tightly, brow wrinkled with pain. Slowly

the hot mist cleared from Roxas's vision and he could see again. Dimly, he realized that he'd just clocked his best friend. As the referee held up his hand as the victor, all Roxas felt was

empty.

Next thing he knew, he was up for the next battle. This time his opponent was Vivi, a meek little... well, Roxas wasn't quite sure _what_ Vivi was. A little black thing in clothes and a hat.

Vivi looked at Roxas and giggled. Then laughed. Roxas felt the skin on the back of his neck and arms prickle and crawl.

"Roxas." someone whispered. Roxas looked behind himself. Seifer was standing there, with an icepack against his head, his skullcap removed for once. Roxas could see blood caked in

the older teenager's blonde hair. "That's not Vivi."

"What?" said Roxas. Then the whistle blew. Something hit Roxas, hard. He had perceived no movement. He fell, hit the ground, bounced, tumbled to a stop. The official blue Struggle bat

slipped from his hand and rolled across the stage. _Get up._ he thought, but he couldn't move. His head was throbbing, his limbs weak and impotent. _Get up, you idiot._

Something hit him again, in the side. Roxas cried out in pain. Again, the stinging pain, across his shoulders, now. Why wasn't the referee calling off the match? He was hit in the head

again, saw stars. The world spun, he squeezed his eyes shut, feeling nauseous. Suddenly all the pain dulled to a slow ache, as of soreness or dehydration. Roxas shook his head and

opened his eyes.

Vivi looked at Roxas and giggled. Then laughed. Roxas felt the skin on the back of his neck and arms prickle and crawl, and his head throbbed painfully.

"Roxas." someone called. Roxas looked behind himself. Seifer was standing there, with an icepack on his head, pressed close against his skullcap. "That's not Vivi."

"What?" said Roxas.

"Thrash 'im." said Seifer, and stalked away.

The whistle blew. Vivi rushed at Roxas, who just barely managed to dodge, leaping to the side and rolling, coming back up on one knee, struggle bat gripped tightly in one hand. Vivi

was already coming for him again, still laughing. Roxas dodged again, swung at the blur which was his opponent, missed. Something struck him across the back, once, twice, three times.

Roxas's feet hit the ground and he ran a few steps before turning. There was Vivi once again, speeding towards him, laughing and laughing.

"Don't laugh at me." Roxas said, and swung the bat. It struck Vivi solidly in the shoulder, and the little thing rolled once, stilled, did not get up.

And then it all went wrong.

Again the laughter, coming from the little lump that was Vivi, curled on the ground. Roxas realized that the crowd had stopped cheering. He looked around. Everyone was frozen in place,

mouths wide open, smiling, yelling, whooping, fists in the air. Pence was suspended a few inches off the ground.

Suddenly Vivi moved. Roxas turned back. From Vivi's limp form, a white wraith erupted, swaying tantalizingly back and forth, eyeless head pointed directly at Roxas. "Again?" he

protested, feeling tired and helpless. His head throbbed again, his shoulder stung, his ribs ached. The Struggle bat was suddenly heavier in his hand, and cold. Roxas looked down. The

strange, enormous key, teeth gleamingly sharp, smiling at him.  
_  
Kill the wraith,_ it whispered to him. _Use me. Kill the wraith._

Roxas sprang at the figure, Keyblade whistling through the air. He struck it over and over again, blind with fear and rage, not even feeling it when the wraith struck back at him, leaving

long red welts across his skin, occasionally drawing blood. With a sad little pop, the thing burst, leaving no trace it had ever been there. Roxas tried to calm his breathing; just then,

something else struck him across the shoulders, whip-like. He spun; three more of the monsters were squirming towards him. He lashed out at them with a cry, pounding at their heads,

slicing at their insubstantial limbs. One by one, he killed them all, and then stood in the center of the arena, waiting for the inevitable wrench in time which he knew must come.

Instead, he heard clapping.

From the back alley came a figure clad in black. Roxas gripped the Keyblade tighter, feeling its rough shaft biting grooves into his hands.

"Roxas. All right. Fight fight fight." said the figure. Roxas bent his knees and prepared to kill this thing, as well, be it man or monster. "You really don't remember?" it asked. "It's me. You

know. Axel."

It pulled its hood back. Roxas saw a shock of red hair--well, really more an explosion than a shock--pale skin, green eyes, a soft smirk, a strange teardrop mark beneath each eye.

"Axel?" Roxas said man was oddly familiar. Just the sight of him made Roxas's head throb, his blood pound in his ears.

"Talk about Blank with a capital 'B.'" the man replied, rolling his eyes. Roxas kept silent. "Man oh man. Even the Dusks aren't gonna crack this one."

Suddenly, erupting from flames, two white-hot chakuran appeared, spinning, by the man's hands. He snatched them from the air coolly, smiling sadly at Roxas.

"Wait a sec." Roxas said, feeling fear rising up to strangle him; the pointed spikes on the weapons looked extremely sharp. "Tell me what's going on."

"This town is his creation, right?" Axel said, looking around at the frozen citizens of Twilight Town. Roxas suddenly realized how very few of them there were. "Which means we don't

have time for a Q & A." The man's voice was mocking, laughing at him. Roxas clenched his teeth. Suddenly, the voice hardened. "You're coming with me, conscious or not. _Then_ you'll hear

the story." Idly, he tossed one weapon into the air and caught it on his fingertips, letting it spin a little like a deadly ferris wheel.

Roxas took a couple steps back; the air behind him writhed and twisted, and the distortion spread towards Axel reaching around behind him, encircling the two. The redhead looked

around, green eyes suddenly wide, shoulders tense.

"Uh-oh." he said. With a whisper, the distortion cleared.  
_  
Kill him now._ whispered the Keyblade. Roxas looked at it, horrified and puzzled.

"What's going _on?_" he screamed, throwing the Keyblade from himself. It clattered against the Struggle stage. Axel watched it go.

Suddenly, the cold weight was back in his hand, biting into his palm as though vengeful.

"Number 13." said Axel, musingly. "Roxas." Suddenly the voice was harsh again. "The Keyblade's _chosen one._" Again, the chakuran tossed into the air, casually, caught with trained

precision.

The Keyblade grew colder in Roxas's hand, whining with anticipation, trembling in his hands. The mist rose again into Roxas's vision, swirling, choking, red-hot. Roxas put his other hand

on the Keyblade as little red flames began to chip off of the chakuran in Axel's black-gloved hands.  
_  
Kill him._ it whispered.

"Okay, _fine!_" Roxas cried. "You asked for it!"

And then the first of the wickedly spiked chakuran was flying towards his head.

Vaguely, he heard something that sounded rather like a hundred little glass shards falling down a metal tube. He couldn't think past the burning pain in his shoulder; although he had

fought, and possibly injured Axel, he had wound up pinned to the Struggle stage by one spike of the chakuran through the shoulder. As his vision flickered, he could see Axel leaping

back to avoid... something. Maybe someone had come to help.

"So it _was_ you." Axel said, voice venomous. Suddenly the pain in Roxas's shoulder intensified, squeezed, dulled. He found that he was no longer pinned. The chakuran erupted into

flames back in Axel's hands, whirling with a noise like helicopters taking off. He hurled them both at... something. Roxas couldn't see what. All he heard was two soft pings, like coins

dropped onto mirrors.

"Roxas." someone said, in a dark, chocolaty voice. "This man speaks nonsense."  
_  
This man is in the act of killing me._ Roxas thought.

"Stay away from him!" Axel cried. There was a flurry of black, movement that made Roxas's head spin; he felt as though he might be sick. And then the smell of burning flesh, and

darkness.


	3. A Chain Broken

It seemed that all Roxas ever did was little, ordinary, daily things, the kinds of things that everyone in Twilight Town did, meaningless things, like delivering letters, or helping to carry

luggage. At least, it seemed that way to Roxas.

To those outside the matrix of Twilight Town, things were very different. They could see that Roxas encountered the white wraiths, Dusks, on an increasingly frequent basis, that he

learned to kill them quickly, and without a single injury to himself. They saw how the Keyblade came to him like a dog called by its master, how it hummed and purred in his hands. They

saw how he dreamed, how slowly, the pieces of a broken boy were coming together, and breaking another as they came. And then they made him forget.

Axel was a wild card. DiZ and his faithful assistant did everything they could to maintain Twilight Town as a seperate entity, uncontaminated by reality or truth, but Axel was slipperier

than a greased eel, and somehow managed to sneak in, undetected, to the completely controlled environment deep within the fortress of DiZ's hard drives, and, even more miraculously,

to find Roxas not once, not twice, but _three times_ without ever being caught at it. They had always managed to wipe Roxas's mind clean of the stain of truth brought into their

experiment by the redhead, but no one could be made to forget so completely that not even a feeling remained, and so Roxas, oblivious, grew slightly more paranoid with every coming

and going of his former compatriot.

But now Roxas was out of Twilight Town, removed from the thickly twined strands of data and deceit which had bound him to his fabricated life, taken away from the slow reconstruction

of his other half, leaving him unsettled and half-formed, with reverberant memories of a life he had never lived still echoing in his dreams.

Roxas woke up, not in his own room, but in the dark, on a hard cot protruding from the wall, like a prison bed, in a cold concrete room with no windows. He sat up, expecting reality to hit

a bump or be squeezed by invisible iron hands, molded back into shape by the unknowable force which oversaw every aspect of his life. But the twist, the break, did not come. Reality

remained as it was, cold and solid, and utterly opaque.

"Took you long enough." came a voice, familiar, yet strange. It sounded metallic, rusted, as though it had not been used in far too long. "I thought you were going to sleep forever."

"Where . . . am I?" Roxas asked. His voice, too, sounded ill-used, neglected. This should not be happening. He rubbed his head, bewildered. Any minute now, the wrenching would come,

the neck-snapping quick-change of setting and time, and he would be back in his room, at sunrise. Any minute now.

"Hollow Bastion." the voice replied. "Charming, isn't it."

"Hollow . . . Bastion?"

"That's what I said. You deaf, or something?" the voice was mocking, but only half-heartedly. It sounded tired.

"My shoulder--!" Roxas exclaimed, expecting to find the deep, penetrating wound left by the red-headed man's chakuram. When he put a hand to his arm, however, where he ought to

have been bloodsoaked and burning with pain, he found only his shirt over his skin, clean, white, whole; unmarked by blood or grime. There was a slight ache, there, as though perhaps

some memory of the wound still pierced his mind deeply enough to convince his flesh that it should hurt.

"Oh yeah. Sorry about that." said the voice. It was so familiar, so close on the tip of Roxas' tongue. . . .

"Who are you?" he demanded. Anger began to simmer, deep within him, and he suddenly wished for the odd, broken-glass feeling of the Keyblade appearing in his hands, biting his skin

with its cold metal and whispering deathly comforts into his mind.

"Man oh _man,_ kid, they wiped you like a slate. Even _Sora_ kept a few chunks. Don't you remember anything?"

"Who's Sora?" Roxas asked. The name had struck a chord, something he remembered, maybe from his dream. A dream. One of the dreams.

"This'll take forever." the voice said, exasperated. "Look, Roxas, let's just say you've been brainwashed and leave it at that. You know me, and you have known me, and I saved you

from getting brainwashed any more. Okay? So just stop asking questions."

"But--"

"Stop." The voice was suddenly harsh. The tone made Roxas' shoulder twinge with remembered pain.

"You!" Roxas cried suddenly, and leapt to his feet. His knees seemed reluctant to hold him. "You're the red-headed man! You tried to kill me!"

"Not exactly." the other admitted. "I just needed to knock you out. Not my fault the things have spikes, now is it? And if you'd come quietly, none of that would have happened."

Suddenly laughing, "So I'm 'the red-headed man' now? Sounds like some kind of weird cult."

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"Roxas, chill out. You're safe now. The Dusks don't come here, and neither DiZ nor his little flunky know where we are. They're only all-mighty inside their little computer world."

"Who? What? Computer world? What are you talking about?" And where was the Keyblade? By this time it should have come to protect him. Roxas felt naked and powerless without it;

his flesh was weak, his fists like butter and his arms small and weedy.

"Like I said, it'll take years to explain. Just go with it. The point is, you're free now, and your memory should start coming back soon."

"What are you talking about? What's going on? Come out here where I can see you!"

It was true. The whole time, the voice of the red-headed man had been emanating from a pitch black corner, where he was invisible. Roxas thought he had seen the flash of light off of

an eye, but he couldn't be sure.

"If I do," the voice was suddenly wary, "you won't try to take my head off with that Keyblade of yours?"

"No," Roxas lied; if he'd had the Keyblade in his hands, he already would have repaid the man a few sharp blows for their earlier battle.

A laugh from the black corner. "Roxas, I always could tell when you were lying." Suddenly light, feigning the carefree attitude of a lesser being, "But fine, I see how it is. Maybe now that

DiZ doesn't have his greedy little fingers in your head, you'll recognize me."

Into the light came the red-headed man, smirking unhappily, green eyes riveted to Roxas. He was wearing the same black coat he had been the last time Roxas had seen him, only it

seemed a little more worn; there was a ragged slice in the left shoulder, and the zipper was broken. The man himself seemed none the worse for wear, except perhaps he looked more

tired than he had before, some of the mad energy drained from his lively face.

"Remember now? It's me. You know. Axel?"

"You said that last time, and I _still_ have no idea who you are." Roxas retorted, wishing he had the Keyblade. Just the sight of the man made his blood boil and the red mist rise to the

edges of his vision.

"Roxas, Roxas, Roxas," said Axel, shaking his head, "you've got to put a lid on that temper of yours. It's only ever gotten you in trouble."

"Don't patronize me!" Roxas snarled, taking a step forward, making a right-to-left slash with his right hand as though it held his long-absent blade, as though he might tear Axel's warm

flesh and spill his blood upon the cold concrete floor.

"Oh dear, now I've made him angry." Axel taunted. "Where's your Keyblade, Roxas? Has it deserted you? Oh dear, oh dear, what ever will you do?" Suddenly the chakuran, spinning

with red fire just under Axel's hands, and he snatched them from the air again. "Don't make me hurt you, Roxas." he growled. "I don't want to have to hurt you."

"I just. Want to know. What. Is going. On." Roxas said slowly, gritting his teeth to hold back his rage. Without the Keyblade, he was no match for those flaming wheels of death. Come

to think of it, even _with_ the Keyblade, he had been no match for those flaming wheels of death.

As quickly as they had come, the fiery weapons were gone from the redhead's sides. "Maybe I'm not the best one to explain this," Axel said, scratching the back of his head. "Maybe

Aerith could do a better job." He turned his attention from his musings back to Roxas. "You like girls, right?"

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"Of course you do. Come on. There's someone you need to meet. She can explain better than I can." And aside, to himself again, "Girl's got a fuse three miles long." He tood Roxas

roughly by the shoulder and began steering him towards the wall. "Come on, don't be shy."

"But what--" Roxas began, when suddenly a black, swirling bubble protruded from the wall. "Eh?" said Roxas.

"In you go!" Axel cried gleefully, and shoved him into the suffocating dark.


	4. Fox Among the Hens

They traveled in darkness, for a time, Axel keeping a firm grip on Roxas' shoulder; it was impossible to see, in that place, that half-reality between places, such that Roxas wondered

how Axel knew where he was going (if he did). Just for a moment, in that suffocating oblivion that was terribly like drowning, Roxas was glad of Axel's hand on his shoulder.

Suddenly they emerged into bright light; Roxas' hand flew up to shield his eyes, although his travelling companion seemed completely unaffected.

"Hey Aerith, can you explain everything to this kid?" Axel demanded, cheekily. "He pisses me off."

"Oh, Axel!" cried a woman. Roxas peered out from behind his hand. "He looks terrible! What happened?"

Aerith looked like she was waiting to be someone's grandmother, or nanny. She dressed well for her age, certainly, and she was not bad looking, Roxas supposed, although she did look

very tired. It was in her fussy manner, and the way she mothered everyone and everything around her; Roxas tried to remember his own mother and couldn't.

"Hey, Roxas, are you crying?" Axel demanded, peering at his charge.

"Go _away,_ Axel." Aerith insisted, taking Roxas' hand gently. "He's been through enough." Then, more gently, to Roxas. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up."

"Why can't I remember?" Roxas asked her, allowing himself to be led away, he knew not where. "Why can't I remember her?"

"Remember who, Roxas?" Aerith asked, placing Roxas in a wooden chair as she would a glass doll, almost as if she were afraid he would break.

"My mother. Anyone." Suddenly, he turned his eyes to her, searching, pleading. It broke her heart. "Why can't I remember anyone?"

"Oh, _Roxas,_" she murmured, and gathered him into her warm, soft arms, "I'm so sorry, Roxas. I'm so sorry."

He shoved her away, violently, knocking her down. "Why can't I remember?" he cried, shooting to his feet. The Keyblade was not there for him, and he was drowning in hot red mist,

unable to think past his rage. He turned and grabbed the chair, threw it across the room, shattered it against the wall. "_Why can't I remember?_"

"Roxas. . . ." Aerith said, and he could see, very vaguely, the first hint of fear in her eyes. Suddenly, his rage subsided, and he sank to the floor, crying again.

"What's going on?" he begged. "What's _wrong_ with me?"

Aerith stared at him for a very long time, then gathered him into her arms again. He sobbed like a child. "Roxas, Roxas, ssh, it's okay, Roxas, it's going to be okay."

"It's not, is it." he choked through his grief. "Just tell me. Tell me the truth. I have to know."

"Roxas," Aerith began, and then sighed. She had to tell him, and there was no easy way. "Roxas, Twilight Town wasn't real. None of it was real."

He looked up at her, confused and broken inside, and said, "What's Twilight Town?"

"So, what you're saying is, he doesn't remember _anything?_" Axel demanded, pacing the room. Aerith nodded.

"That's what it looks like."

"But he remembered _me._" Axel snapped, rounding on Aerith. "He knew who I was. He remembered fighting me. He remembered the Keyblade. What happened? He should be

remembering _more,_ not forgetting! What did he do to him?"

"What did who do to him?"

"DiZ! That low-life, that . . . that _murderer!_ How did he do it, Aerith? How did this happen?"

"Don't take it out on me, Axel." Aerith replied, coldly. The room was getting steadily warmer. "There's nothing I can do."

"DiZ _did_ something to him. I know it. He had to. That's the only explanation."

"Axel, please stop. You're not going to help him this way."

"So what am I supposed to do? Just sit back and let him turn into a vegetable?"

"He's not turning into a vegetable."

Axel glared at her. "Fine. Fine! If you won't try to help him, I will." He turned and stormed towards the door.

"Axel?" Aerith said. He looked over his shoulder. "Be careful, okay?"

"I won't hurt him." he lied, and left.

Aerith shook her head. "That's not what I meant," she muttered, but she was alone.


	5. Heaven Hath No Rage

The door slammed open and a wave of dry heat rolled in, with the single screamed word "_Roxas!_" tearing through at its head. Roxas sat up, alarmed. He had been sleeping, dreaming of

things he almost recalled. Maybe, he thought, if this asshole hadn't come bursting in, he would have remembered.

Axel stormed over to Roxas and yanked him bodily from his bed by his arm. "Get up." he snapped. The young blond allowed himself to be yanked and shaken and yelled at, flopping like

a ragdoll. "Look at me."

Roxas did not look.

"I said _look at me!_"

A scalding hand grabbed Roxas' face and forced it towards Axel's, leaving Roxas no choice but to meet Axel's eyes.

"Who am I?" the redhead demanded, and then dug in his fingers to the blond's cheek and arm when Roxas did not answer. "You know, damn it, so tell me who I am!"

"You're hurting me." Roxas said finally.

"You think I _care?_" The fingers dug in deeper, the heat grew almost unbearable, the boy could feel his bones creaking and his lungs shrivelling. "I _know_ you remember me, Roxas. You

had better."

"You're _hurting_ me." he said again, more firmly, trying to puncture Axel's eyes with his gaze. If Axel didn't let go soon, very bad things were going to happen. He felt like something was

missing, something terribly important. If only he could remember. . . .

Axel said nothing intelligible, just dug in his heels and threw Roxas halfway across the room with a cry of terrible fury, flames flaking off of him with the intensity of his rage. Roxas hit the

floor hard and rolled, attempted to get up and found that his shoulder had broken upon impact. He cried out with the pain, tears streaming down his face. He couldn't bring himself to

look at Axel, couldn't face that fast-approaching fiery doom.

He need not have bothered, because it never came. When Roxas had screamed, he had screamed the name of his attacker.

"You . . . you really _do_ remember me." Axel said, with such a soft note in his voice that Roxas looked up at him. Axel was crying. "Roxas." He chuckled. "Roxas! I knew you couldn't forget

me. I knew it."

"My . . . my arm." Roxas choked. "My arm is broken."

Axel looked down at the blond as though seeing him for the first time. The smile vanished from his face, his tears stopped flowing abruptly.

"Did _I_ do that?" he wondered aloud, and then looked down at his hands. "Wow. Guess I must have."

"Please." Roxas pleaded, in agony. "Please, do something. It hurts. It really, really hurts. Make it stop. Please, Axel, make it stop!"

"What? Why don't you just heal it?" Axel demanded, giving Roxas a quizzical look.

"I can't!" he retorted, scarcely able to speak through the searing pain. It felt as though it was getting worse. "I can't, please, Axel, do something!"

Axel strode to Roxas' side and knelt by him. "All right, you baby, let me see." He took hold of Roxas' shoulder to inspect the wound. The blood had soaked through the leather of his

gloves in mere seconds.

"What. . . ?" he began, as Roxas drifted in and out of consciousness.

It was then he noticed the giant, sharp-toothed key smiling broadly all the way through Roxas' shoulder.


	6. The Hollow Men

**AN: I would like you all to remember exactly what Axel did (or tried to do) to his fellow Organization members, Vexen in particular. I'm not sure there's a member-- other than Roxas, and maybe Demyx-- whom he _hasn't _tried to "eliminate". . . .**

Roxas was recovering admirably, in body, if not in mind. His wound healed with all speed, and with no complications. However, even as his body repaired itself and was strengthened,

his memories were wasting away. Axel and Aerith stayed by his side constantly, telling him of the memories he had forgotten, reminding him daily of who they were, where he was. It

was not amnesia, exactly, because he would often forget what simple things were, such as the Keyblade that never allowed itself to be more than ten yards from his side, and

sometimes remember odd snippets of his previous life, like the strange girl in white who had once appeared to him. He slept with the Keyblade in his hand.

Eventually, the pair of caretakers grew concerned beyond their abilities, and called for the wizard Merlin.

He did not appear in a puff of smoke, for Axel had warned him not to (the redhead had once entered the room too quickly and received a Keyblade in the face for it; he had been laid up

for almost a full day), but rather crept in through the door, rheumy eyes surveying his surroundings. When they alighted upon Roxas, their owner grew sad, his grey face sagging with

the heaviness of woe.

"I have seen this once before, in poor young Tifa's boy." he said. That was one of the many confusing things about Merlin: since he lived his life backwards, he remembered things that

had not yet happened. Tifa had certainly never had a child, so far as Aerith knew (Axel was not in a position to have found out even if she had, and could have cared less). "It is a

wasting sickness of the mind."

He shuffled to Roxas's bedside, where the boy was fast asleep with the cold metal key clutched to his side, and laid a knobbled hand on his warm, smooth forehead. "It begins with

small things: names, places, inconsequenstial memories. But then, once the weakest links have fallen away, the stronger ones begin to break. He forgets his friends, his family; even his

nearest and dearest memories will flee from him. Eventually, he will simply forget how to live."

Axel shot to his feet. Aerith sighed. "You have to do something." he said.

"My dear boy," Merlin replied sadly, turning, "there is nothing I can do."

Aerith hung her head. Axel grabbed the wizard by the lapels and shook him. "You _have_ to do something!" he cried. "You can't let him die!"

"There is nothing I can do." Merlin repeated. "It is too late for the boy. He is already too far gone."

"No!" Axel screamed, and, to Aerith's horror, the magician burst into flames in Axel's iron grip. "_No!_"

As suddenly as they had come, the flames were gone, and Merlin with them. Aerith sighed, and then leapt from her seat as she realized that Axel's full fury was now directed at her.

"You." he said, pointing an accusing finger. "You can do something."

"I don't know what to do," Aerith said carefully, "but I'll try."

"That's not good enough!" he responded, slashing at the air with his gloved hand. Flames trailed from his fingertips. "He's _dying,_ Aerith, you have to _do_ something!"

"Axel," she replied sternly, "I'll try. Calm down, now, you'll wake him."

"Look at me! Do I look like I care? He's dying, what do a few hours of sleep matter?"

"Axel, please stop it." Aerith said. "You're not helping. Sit down, and we'll talk about this, and do more good than we will panicking."

"But--!"

"Sit!"

Axel sat. Aerith took a chair next to him and placed a comforting hand on his fist. "Axel, I promise, it's going to be okay. We'll find a way, all right?"

"Sure." said Axel. "Of course. Which is why the same thing will kill Tifa's son--"

"Enough." she snapped. "Pessimism won't help. I know I haven't known Roxas as long as you have, but I still care enough about him to want to save his life. You have to trust me, Axel.

I'm going to do everything I can."

Axel looked up into Aerith's calm, clear eyes and saw the truth there; and the truth was, Axel was a murderer.

"Oh God." said Axel.

"What?" said Aerith, impulsively looking over her shoulder at Roxas, who was still sleeping peacefully.

"Oh, _God._" the redhead said again, trembling like a leaf in a gale.

The young woman turned her eyes back to him, saw the horror written in every feature of his face, every line of his ill-nourished body. "Axel, what?" she pleaded, taking his large hand

in both of hers. "What is it?"

"I killed him."

"What? No, Axel, Roxas is fine."

Axel shook his head, staring straight forward at the past. "I killed him, in cold blood. For no reason. I didn't really think it would keep Roxas from going away. Because I could. Because it

was _easy._ God, what have I done?"

"Who? Who did you kill, Axel?" Aerith begged, kneeling at Axel's feet, clasping his hand with all her pale strength. "Who was it, Axel?"

"I did it," Axel whispered. "That's why he's dying now. That's why he can't remember. Because I did it."

"Axel, for God's sake, who did you kill?"

And to Aerith's surprise and horror, Axel laughed, a slow, hollow, mad laugh that echoed around in the empty place where his heart should have been.

"Sora." he said, and laughed himself sick.


	7. A Word in the Dark

"Hello. Who're you?"

"Who are _you_?"

"I'm Sora. You look . . . familiar. Do I know you?"

"Roxas. No, you don't. I've never seen you before in my life. Where are we?"

"No idea. It's kinda . . . dark."

"Yeah."

"...Are you _sure_ we've never met? I could swear I've seen you before somewhere."

"You haven't. Why do you keep saying that?"

"Because it's true. Hey, maybe you can help me figure it out. Where are you from?"

"I . . . I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"No, I don't. Is that a problem?"

"Well, it just seems like such a sad thing, to not know where you're from."

"Yeah, well, it doesn't bug me."

"Okay, if you say so. I'm from Destiny Islands."

"Never heard of them."

"I didn't think you would have. They're kind of in the middle of nowhere. My friends-- Riku and Kairi-- and I, we tried to build a raft to get off of them. Man, that was a long time ago. Hey,

are you okay?"

"K-Kairi? Did you say . . . Kairi?"

"Yeah, Kairi. She's my-- um, friend."

"Red hair, blue eyes? Kinda short?"

"That's her. Why? Have you seen her?"

"Well--"

"Where? I've been looking everywhere for her!"

"I haven't actually _seen_ her. I dreamed about her."

"You dreamed about her?"

"That's what I said. Are you deaf?"

"How can you dream about someone you've never met?"

"I don't know, I just did! It was a castle, she was just waking up, lying on some stairs, and there was a boy, and he was dying--"

"Who was he? Did he have silver hair?"

"N-no."

"Oh. I thought maybe, Riku. . . ."

"It was you."

"...What?"

"It was you. You were in the dream. You were dying. I saw you die."

"Hey, it was just a dream. I'm fine, I'm right here, alive."

"Are you?"

"What?"

"Are you alive? Are you sure? Maybe we're both dead."

"Naw, couldn't be. Dead people can't talk. I sure don't _feel_ dead."

"I saw you die!"

"You were dreaming, Roxas. I've never died in my whole life. Well, kind of, once, but I came back. It wasn't that bad, and it sure wasn't like this. I turned into a heartless for a while, it

was weird."

"You . . . remind me of someone."

"Really? Who?"

"I'm not sure. It's someone I know, someone from Twilight Town. . . ."

"What's Twilight Town?"

"The place I grew up. Didn't I tell you that?"

"You said you didn't remember. Hey, maybe your memory is coming back! Don't look so glum, that's a good thing. I lost _my_ memories once, it was really nice to get them back. I

remembered all the people I cared about, and it was nice to know how many there were."

"No. No, I don't want to remember. It's lies. It's just . . . lies. Everything. Twilight Town, Hayner, Pence, Olette, those white wraiths, all of it was a lie."

"Whoah, calm down. Your whole life can't have been a lie. You can't just make up someone's whole life."

"The red-headed man."

"What?"

"The red-headed man. The one who tried to kill me. He's real, I'm sure of it."

"Did he throw fire all over the place?"

"Yes! That's him."

"I know him. Axel. A member of Organization XIII. I didn't know he was still around. Last I remember--"

"What? What do you remember?"

"The last thing I remember . . . is fire."

Roxas woke up with a start, took one look at his empty room, and started running. He bolted out the door, down the straight hallway without even noticing the passageways and rooms

that branched off to the sides, stumbled through an atrium with barely a glance around him, tripped and fell in a water-feature and scrambled to his feet in an instant. He couldn't

breath, couldn't hear, could barely see past the red mist that covered his eyes like a dense river fog. He kept running, and the only thing he could feel was the cold metal of the keyblade

in his hands-- not the pain from his skinned knees, not the burning in his muscles and lungs, not the stinging of the cold air in his nose and mouth and eyes, not the wind in his hair, not

the water on his skin, just the keyblade, cold and sinister and heavy, friendly like a guard dog beaten one too many times.

He ran and he ran, until his muscles turned to water and his lungs collapsed and his heart burst from the strain, and he lay on the ground panting and staring at the sky, becoming

slowly aware of the sides of a purple chasm rising into the stars on either side of him, slowly feeling the cold, rough rocks at his back, slowly regaining feeling and feeling pain.

He held the keyblade still, and the keyblade held him. They were like a man and a tiger, trapped together on a boat in the middle of a vast sea-- each eager to destroy the other, and

each too scared of being alone to do it.


	8. All for None

"Namine!"

Axel burst into the room with unbridled fury, leaving black handprints on the white doors and trailing the smell of burning laquer.

"Hello, Axel. Is there a problem?"

"You know damn well there's a problem!"

"I had gathered, yes."

"You can bring him back. You did it before, you can do it again!"

"Bring who back? Sora?"

"Yes, _Sora!_ Have you brought anyone _else_ back from the dead?"

"Now that you mention it, yes, but that's none of your business. And, technically, _I _didn't bring Sora back, Kairi did."

"Kairi's dead, you'll have to do."

"Do? I'll _do?_ If you want me to do anything for you, you'll have to ask more nicely."

Axel paused, drinking in the cold, hospital-like air of Castle Oblivion until he could see straight again.

"Namine, Roxas is dying. He was okay as long as he stayed in Twilight Town, but now that I've taken him out, he's losing all his memories, fading away. Will you help me save him?"

"Roxas? I thought he was--"

"That's what DiZ wanted you to think. We all thought he was dead, but he's not. Yet, anyway. I need you to help me, please."

Namine closed her notebook and rose slowly. She was still only a child, barely thirteen, but she had always been, and always would be, merely a pawn to Axel. He had saved her, once,

because it suited him to do so. He came to her for help because he had nowhere else to turn. She was a pawn and a utensil (although of the two of them, Axel was the tool), and

nothing more.

She nodded decisively. "I'll do anything I can."

"Good. Now come on, we don't have much time."

"Axel, wait."

"What?"

Namine paused, looking out the high windows at the featureless white sky. "What happens if we can't save him?"

"We will." Axel said. "Now come on."

Namine sighed and followed him away.

She knew it was going to be bad when they stepped into the quiet bedroom and no one was there. She didn't know quite how bad until she stepped fully from the darkness between

places and felt the waves of heat washing off of Axel's shoulders, touseling his spiked flame-red hair.

"Axel," she began.

"Where is he?" Axel demanded, unmoving, as though incapable of the slightest twitch of the head in his paralyzing fury.

"If he can get up and walk around--"

"He _can't_ get up and walk around. Someone took him."

"You don't know that--"

"Someone _took_ him!"

"Axel, calm down--"

"_Someone took Roxas!_"

Namine's hands clenched around each other, and she trembled. Axel wouldn't hesitate to kill her; why should he? He was a murderer, a soulless killer, and she was a tool that no longer

had a use. If she couldn't get him to believe that Roxas had walked away under his own willpower, someone was going to get hurt.

"No one took Roxas, Axel. Nobody. He would have fought. Does it look like there was a fight here?"

"He was half-dead, of course there wasn't a fight!"

"He took the Keyblade. No one would kidnap Roxas _and_ the Keyblade. No one's that stupid."

"His _shoes_ are still here. You think he would just walk away without his shoes? Someone _took_ him, I'm telling you! That Keyblade refuses to be more than ten feet away from him, you 

_can't_ take Roxas without taking the Keyblade, it's impossible! Stop making up excuses and help me find him!"

"What do you want me to do?" Namine inquired, feeling rather helpless. Certainly, no one could do this to Roxas. Who would want-

"Oh, no." said Namine. "Oh, no, Axel."

"What?" He finally turned. "What, what is it?"

"I know who took him." she whispered, eyes brimming with tears. She could barely speak, could barely breathe for fear.

"Who?" Axel demanded, fists clenching. "Tell me who, and I swear I'll kill him!"

"It was-- it had to be--"

"Damn it, Namine!"

"It was Xemnas!"

There was, for a moment, silence. Namine let a small sob escape her lips.

"The Superior." sneered Axel. "I should have known." He wrenched open a door to the way between and was about to leap through when he was arrested by a small voice crying out,

"No!" He turned to look.

Namine was still standing there, stock still, crying fat tears that slid down her chin and dripped onto her hands, which were now white with the strain of holding each other. "No, Axel,

you can't. He'll kill you."

"Not if I get him first."

"Axel!" she sobbed. "Please, don't! For Roxas's sake, don't!"

He stared at her, unmoving and unmoved, and turned back to his portal.

With a final, heartbreaking sob, Namine bowed her head and sharply wrenched her hands apart, and reality jolted, something bent or twisted or broke, and then-

And then there was a Dusk in the twilight.

* * *

**AN: Tidings of Comfort, Joy, and Fanfiction, everyone!**


	9. Planning a Plan

Namine stared at the spot where Axel had been only seconds ago. The Dusk swayed to and fro, like a snake charmed by a flautist. She found that her hands were shaking, and breathed deeply

in an attempt to center herself. It would have worked, had not the door opened in the very next instant.

"Roxas, good news--" Aerith began, and stopped short, taking in the empty bed, the Dusk, and Namine. "Where's Roxas?" she asked, finding that no other question would suffice.

"I don't know." Namine replied, and suddenly was talking far too fast. "We came to look for him, and he was gone, and Axel looked like he was going to kill someone, and it looked like it was

going to be me, and . . . and, well, a Nobody is a shell made of memories, and if you break the chain. . . ." She gestured helplessly towards the Dusk, which was sauntering casually towards

Aerith. The red-haired woman picked up a book and threw it at the white wraith, and her aim was true; the book struck the thing on its pyramidal head, and rendered it, apparently, unconscious.

"You turned Axel into a Dusk?" she asked incredulously.

"It's my power. I only recently figured out how to do it."

"But why Axel?"

"He was going to kill me."

Aerith could find no fault in this reasoning; she had feared for her life on more than one occasion with Axel. "Is there any way to put him back, or is he like this forever?"

"There's a way." Namine replied. "But I think we should find Roxas first."

"Of course. But what if someone sees him and attacks him? Or what if he attacks someone? He's terribly easy to kill right now."

"Oh." said Namine. "I suppose we'll just have to keep an eye on him."

"You mean, put him on a leash and tote him around with us? Won't that look suspicious?"

"Yes, but it'll keep him from getting killed."

Aerith sighed, staring at the limp form of the Nobody slowly doing backflips in the air. "There's no other option? Nowhere we could put him?"

Namine shook her head. "Any Nobody can travel through the ways between worlds. If we put him somewhere, he would just teleport out when he got bored. We have to keep him with us."

"What's stopping him from teleporting away from us?"

Namine shrugged. "They don't usually do it if there's interesting stuff around, like hearts."

Aerith thought, just for a moment, that she saw something very much like hunger in the young blonde's eyes. She tried to keep her face impassive, and must have succeeded, because Namine

continued talking as though nothing had happened.

"We have to find Roxas, though. The Superior has him, but I don t know how to find the Superior."

"Who?"

"Xemnas. The leader of Organization XIII. He has Roxas."

That sounded bad. "Are you sure?"

"Who else would have taken him?"

"Maybe no one took him. Maybe he ran away."

"Without his shoes?"

"Maybe he was running away from something dangerous. It s not unheard-of for Heartless to come here. Maybe he woke up, saw one, and started running."

"Maybe."

"I want to help you, Namine. I really do. But I don t want to face the leader of Organization XIII. I'm not a warrior, I'm a healer. I don't fight well. If you want to look for your Superior--"

"He's not _my_ Superior. I'm not a member."

"If you want to look for _the_ Superior, you're going to have to do it alone."

"Okay. I'll look for the Superior, and you look for Roxas. He won't notice me around the castle; he never does."

Aerith sighed. It didn't really matter that Namine was an incredibly powerful witch, she was still just a little girl, and Aerith hated to see her throwing herself into danger. It bothered her 'mother'

instincts. "All right. I'll look around Hollow Bastion, try to find out if anyone's seen him."

"Good luck." said Namine, carefully twisting open a portal to the dark way between worlds.

"You too."

Namine stepped through the door and closed it behind her, and Aerith realized that she was stuck with the mindless drone that had once been Axel.

"Wonderful." she said, cautiously approaching the slowly rotating Dusk. "You're more trouble than you're worth, you know that?"

As if in answer, the Nobody woke up, righted itself, and struck out at her.


	10. Interlude

Aerith sat on Roxas's recently vacated bed, chin propped on her hand, staring despondently at the unconscious Dusk floating listlessly about the room.

"_What_ am I going to do with you?" she mused, and sighed, that being the fourth time she had asked herself the same question in the last hour. She hadn't come up with any answers as

of yet, and had been forced to throw books at the Nobody seven or eight times to keep it from trying to steal her heart. She was beginning to worry that she might accidentally kill it if

she kept up the abuse.

And then, suddenly and for no reason, an idea came to her. It was a terribly bad idea, and might get her and the-Nobody-formerly-known-as-Axel killed, but it was better than sitting

around in this room all day throwing books at the thing.

Fueled by the fire of decision, she got to her feet and collected a few things from around her room that she would need for the short trip into town, stuffing it all haphazardly into a bag.

She fastened a short, coarse rope around the unconscious Nobody's neck (or what passed for it), and dragged it along behind her like a child's balloon.

She couldn't handle a Nobody in her room, but she knew who could. The only problem would be getting through town to him, dragging a deadly monster behind her.

Aerith gave the white wraith a gentle tug, watching it drift closer to her, half-expecting it to wake up. It didn't. She towed it to the door and paused again, eyes sharp for any sign of

conscious movement. There was none. Still moving with the upmost of caution, she stepped out the door.

And ran into-- literally-- Squall Leonhart, who had taken to calling himself Leon since being wrenched unexpectedly from his home world.

"Aerith?" he said, twisting his monotone into a question at the very last second. "Are you going. . . ."

Ah, she thought, he saw it.

"What is _that?_" he asked, staring.

"Axel." she replied. "Sort of."

He was drumming his fingers on the handle of his gunblade. "Why is it _here?_"

"It's not going to be for long, so you don't need to worry about it."

Just then, the Dusk woke up, peering around with whatever excuse for eyes it had with a certain air of befuddlement.

"Don't need to _worry_ about it." Leon said. "Those things kill people."

"So did Axel, and you weren't worried about him."

"I was, I just didn't say anything. I knew you wouldn't listen."

The Nobody had discovered its leash and was doing zero-gravity acrobatics in semi-slow-motion in an attempt to escape.

"Of course I would have listened. You weren't the only one with doubts. No one trusted him, not even Merlin."

"Merlin is a paranoid old twit."

"Last week you called him a 'trusting idiot,' if I remember right. Anyway, all of this is beside the point. I'm taking him out of here, and then he won't be your problem anymore."

The Dusk had decided that its evasive maneuvers were getting it nowhere and was chewing on the leash with what were probably its teeth, its stringy limbs draped over the coarse

rope limply.

"I'm coming with you." Leon declared. "You'll be attacked if you carry that thing through town."

"Don't be silly."

"I'm not."

The Dusk was now chewing on the leash upside down, this apparently giving it a better angle. It didn't seem to be making much progress.

"Leon, I appreciate the offer, but--"

"It's not an offer. I'm coming with you, like it or not."

Aerith sighed and tugged on the leash, causing the Dusk to bob forwards and ripple like a windsock. "Oh, all right then, let's go. The sooner we get it out of here, the happier I'll be."

"Where are we going?"

"Cloud's in town. I thought we'd let him hold on to it for now."

"That kid? He has enough problems as it is."

"Do you have any better ideas?"

Leon was silent, as was his talent.

"I didn't think so. Come on." She jerked on the makeshift lead again, and the Dusk, who had just righted itself, tumbled like a cartoon clown who had just encountered a banana peel.

They managed to get out of the castle without incident, through the bailey and past Merlin's house-- which was exuding a strange glittering powder that smelled of coreander-- without

meeting anyone whatsoever. The Dusk kept trying to dig its tendril hands and feet into cracks, or (when that failed) saunter casually up to Aerith or Leon so that it could whale on them

with its whiplike limbs. Needless to say, it did not succeed in any of these ventures, but it was very trying in its attempts.

"If that thing tries to sneak up on me one more time. . . ." Leon threatened, hand tightening upon his gunblade. Aerith would have placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him, but the

Dusk was sidling up to her again like a sleazy bearded man wearing a cowboy hat and sunglasses in a smoke-fogged bar. She jerked on the leash and sent it tumbling, something that

was impressively easy and surprisingly fun to do.

"I know it's difficult to put up with, but please try. It's important."

Leon made a face and did not kill the Dusk when it swished its way over to him and reached out to poke him in the face, just backfisted it in the head, and (predictably) sent it tumbling.

"Be careful!" Aerith insisted.

"I _am._" Leon growled.

They rounded the corner into the market place, and basked in the few moments of normality before someone screamed.

Leon rolled his eyes. "I told you this would happen."

"Just keep walking." she told him, and gave the Dusk a good, hard jerk, as it had stopped in the middle of the street and was staring around like a tourist from the country. Even as she

dragged it, it lifted a noodly appendage and pointed at the nearest pedestrian-- a duck-- with the air of a small child encountering a very fat person for the first time ever. The duck

looked on in horror and then hid in his freezer.

People scattered before them, and had soon created a ten-foot-wide avenue for them and ceased panicking. Aerith had liked the panicking better; at least they hadn't been staring on

in horror and disgust.

"Walk faster." Leon ordered. Aerith picked up her pace, not quite to the point of fearing for her life, and gave the Dusk another sharp jerk in doing so, which was fortunate, because it

had chosen another of Hollow Bastion's inhabitants to point at in wonderment. The doe-eyed armor seller was hiding behind a muscley-armed paper boy, who was watching Aerith and

her odd cargo go past with no small amount of animosity.

"Leon! Aerith! What's going on?"

"Great." Leon muttered, as Yuffie, the Greatest Ninja of Wherever-You-Care-To-Mention, came sprinting towards them.

"What's _that_ doing here?" she said, pointing to the Nobody with her classic lack of tact. "And why is it on a string?"

"Go get Cloud." Leon ordered under his breath, not stopping for Yuffie. "These people are about to start throwing things."

"You got it!" the girl cried, and sprinted off again.

The Dusk, surprisingly, shot out ahead of Aerith in its squirming flight pattern to chase after Yuffie. Aerith was tugged rather sharply by this sudden movement, and the twine leash

slipped from her hand. With an odd _mmwop_ noise, the Dusk wriggled away after Yuffe.

"After it!" Leon cried, and took off running. Aerith didn't bother following. She decided she had a better chance of calming down a large crowd of angry, frightened people that keeping up

with Leon or Yuffie.

"Now, look," she said, hands raised in a sign of peace, "it's for science. We're trying to see if there's a way to put them back the way they were."

Which was very nearly true. The people believed it-- because, come on, it was _Aerith,_ she was probably physically incapable of lying-- and, muttering darkly, went back to their lives.

Aerith sighed and followed after Leon at a brisk walk. If the Dusk had caught up to Yuffie, well . . . at the worst, Axel was dead. Yuffie could take care of herself, albeit a little too well.

Far ahead, she heard the sound of yelling, and steel hitting stone. Shaking her head, she adjusted her bag on her shoulder and walked a little faster.

*~*~*~*

Namine came through the door into Castle Oblivion, glancing to either side to ensure that no one had seen her. There was no one there, and she crept onto the white floors with as little

sound as was possible. The door closed behind her with barely a whisper, leaving no shadow of its existence.

"Where is he?" someone said, and Namine turned around just in time to see a pair of black-gloved hands stretching out to grab her.


	11. Waking in Darkness

**AN: Sorry it took so long!**

Namine woke up slowly, although she wasn't sure she had, at first, because the room was so interminably dark. When she heard the voice was when she knew she had woken.

"You too, huh?" it said, and muttered some unrepeatable words.

"Roxas?" said Namine, sitting up slowly. She could just barely make out a glint of light off of blond hair. "Is that you?"

"As far as I know." said Roxas. "But you can't trust _my_ memory."

"What happened? Did Xemnas get you?"

Roxas rolled his eyes, mostly because he knew Namine couldn't see him. "No, I walked in here all by myself and decided to sleep in this nice, comfy cell." Something slammed against iron bars with a resounding _clang_. "What do you _think_ happened?" he yelled.

"I'm sorry." she whispered, once the echoes had died. "I was coming to save you."

"Yeah, _that_ worked."

"Axel's been turned into a Dusk." she said, in the hopes of getting Roxas to care. There was a long, dark pause.

"Good." said Roxas. "He tried to kill me."

"He didn't." she objected. "Axel would never hurt you." She thought about this, and added: "On purpose."

"I don't care." Roxas muttered, and there was the sound of him turning away.

Namine rose slowly, testing the strength of her legs; she was able to stand without difficulty, but walking presented a challenge. She stumbled towards the light that glinted off of Roxas's hair, and ran smack into a heavy set of iron bars. She explored them with her hands thoroughly, and found that they were too close-set to slip between, to heavy to bend, especially with her physique.

"Roxas, why are we in different cells?" she asked.

"Why don't you ask the Superior? He ordered us put in here. I'm sure he'll be glad to hear from you, especially about Axel."

"The Organization is trying to _kill_ Axel because he rescued you." Namine snapped. "You could show a little gratitude."

"Maybe I didn't _want_ to be rescued. Maybe I _liked_ living a lie."

"Twilight Town is real. At least, there's a real version. Hayner, Pence, Olette-- everyone exists, they've just . . . never met you. I could take you there."

"No thanks." said Roxas, petulantly.

"Fine. If that's how you're going to be."

"Maybe it is."

"Fine."

"Fine."

A few minutes passed in silence.

"Why is it so dark?" Roxas asked eventually.

"I don't know. Saix usually keeps it as bright in here as in the rest of the castle."

"Probably just mind-games."

"Probably."

"Can't you open up one of those bubble-things and get us out of here?"

"Bubble--? Oh, those. I can try." Namine tried. For a moment, a bubble of lighter darkness opened in the prison gloom, and then popped. "Apparently not."

"Huh." said Roxas. "Should've known."

Suddenly, the chamber was brilliant with light, and both Roxas and Namine cried out and shielded their eyes.

"Well well," said the newcomer, footsteps ringing on the polished marble floor, "_someone_'s been trying to escape. Don't you like it here, Namine?"

"Let us go, Saix!" she cried, reaching through the bars as though to scratch his eyes out with her fingernails.

He smiled at her, the white x-shaped scar on his forehead wrinkling his face oddly as he did so. "Ah, no." said Saix. "What would be the point in that? You've only just arrived."

There was a sound like a mirror's throat being cut. Saix turned, a look of mild interest in his yellow eyes. Roxas was standing in his cell, dirtied and cut and bruised, hair mussed, face contorted in rage, the Keyblade gleaming in his trembling hands.

"At last, the Keyblade master appears." said Saix. "Tell me, Roxas, what does it feel like to be a traitor? If you would only agree to rejoin us, not only would you be safe, but this girl--" he gestured to Namine-- "would be safe, and Axel could be restored to his true shape. Isn't that what you want?"

"Shut up or I'll kill you." Roxas growled.

_Kill him now_, whispered the Keyblade, humming with anticipation. _Use me, kill him now._

"I'm terrified." Saix said blandly. "Although it is a treat to watch your memories return. That readheaded failure certainly wasn't--"

The Keyblade scythed through the air, whizzing between the bars of the cell as though built to fit. It struck the wall directly behind where Saix's head had been, slicing off a lock of blue hair and cracking the white marble, ringing like a death-knell. Saix stared at Roxas, and Namine had the sudden urge to laugh and applaud while the giant key clattered to the floor.

"He fights," said Saix, not without considerable relish. "Roxas, if your memories were still far-gone, I could forgive you for that. However, as things stand, I must treat you as I treat any traitor." Something large and spiked appeared in Saix's hands, Namine was too distraught to really name it as anything. It looked like death on a stick. "You first, then the girl, and then Axel."

"Really?" said Roxas. The Keyblade was suddenly back in his hands, and he mirrored its uncanny grin. "I'd hate to take all the fun, but I don't think I can resist killing you for that long."

"We shall see." Saix said, and, just as he was about to smash the bars of Roxas's cell and Roxas in one fell swoop, was suddenly distracted. He stared at the ceiling for a few moments, and then let out something that could only be called a growl of frustration. "There will be time to kill you later," he said to Roxas, as his death-stick vanished into thin air. "Right now I have more pressing matters to attend to." He turned to Namine, put two fingers to his forehead, and bowed. "Until next time." he said, and departed.

Roxas fell back into a sitting position while the Keyblade evaporated. Namine slid down the bars of her cell, shaking with relief.

Roxas turned to Namine and, after confirming that they were both uninjured, said the most sensible and obvious sentence he had ever uttered in his life.

"We _have_ to get out of here."


	12. Magus Ex Machina

"My goodness," said Merlin, in what was quite possibly the understatement of the century, "she seems to have turned him into a Dusk."

Ignoring how he knew the Dusk was Axel- Merlin knew lots of things and the method wasn't important just then- Aerith asked, "Can you change him back? Roxas is missing, and we can't seem to find any trace of where he went."

"Wouldn't it be easier if I just found Roxas for you?"

"And have him come back to see Axel like this?" Leon said, and shook his head slowly. "I wouldn't want to see _those_ fireworks."

"What about Namine? This is her work, she should be able to undo it."

Aerith shared a glance with Leon before explaining, "She went to look for Roxas. We haven't heard from her since."

"Perhaps I could find _her_ for you?" Merlin suggested, obviously not eager to attempt to fix Axel. "It would be simpler."

"Finding her and bringing her here are two completely different things, and there's no guarantee she'll cooperate." Leon snapped. He was even unhappier than usual. "It's possible she's trapped, wherever she is. I _knew_ Xemnas wouldn't just welcome her with open arms."

"All the more reason to rescue her!" Merlin pointed out cheerfully, and rolled up his huge sleeves without waiting for the others to argue.

"This is your fault," Leon commented to Cloud, who had been standing motionless in a corner of the room for so long Leon had almost forgotten he was there. "I _told_ you this guy wouldn't be any use."

"Any better ideas?" Cloud muttered, giving Leon an evil look. "Didn't think so. Let's mosey."

Just then, Merlin cried out- it was difficult to say with what emotion, but it certainly got everyone's attention. "Ah! She's in prison! And . . . my, what's this? Roxas is with her, my goodness!"

"Can you get them out?" Aerith asked, rushing to the magician's elbow. His eyes twinkled at her.

"Don't insult me." he said playfully. The wizard then waved his wizened arms in the air and mumbled a few words, and Roxas and Namine appeared in the room in a very unlikely puff of smoke, looking very concerned and very confused and, in Roxas' case, _very_ angry. Merlin went to sit down- he was not as young as he would be, you know- and left Cloud, Leon, Aerith and the Dusk to explain everything. Although, Cloud was almost as talkative as the Dusk, so he hardly counted.

"Roxas, Namine!" Aerith cried, embracing them both. "Are you all right?"

"Fine." Roxas snapped, extricating himself from the hug. "Is that Axel?" He pointed at the Dusk, which was still, for once.

"Sort of." said Leon. "Namine?"

"Yes, that's him. His memories have been unlinked."

"Put him _back_." Roxas commanded. Namine had seen the same rage on his face when he had been set on killing Saix. She put her hands up in a gesture of peace.

"I will, I promise. It won't take more than an hour. They haven't been separated long, and he hasn't made any new ones- Dusks aren't sentient- so it won't take long at all. Calm down, Roxas. It will be okay."

"It had better be." he warned. There was a moment of silence.

"Come on, Roxas, let's get you cleaned up." Aerith said at last, gently laying her fingertips on Roxas' shoulder. "Namine needs space to work."

For once, Roxas allowed himself to be led off without protest. The whole room relaxed when he had gone. The Dusk slunk over to one of Merlin's desks and knocked down a bottle, then turned a somersault, apparently in amusement, because it repeated the process with another bottle, and then another- knock down, flip, knock down, _smash!_ Two flips.

"Please hurry." Leon said, pained by the hilarity behind him.

Namine simply nodded, sat down, and, after a moment of thought, threw a book at the Dusk. This rendered it unconscious.

"Now." she said. "I'll start with the basics. Axel, Number Eight, The Flurry of Dancing Flames. . . ."


	13. An Improvement in Circumstances

Leon stared critically at the Dusk, head cocked to one side, as Namine sipped her glass of ice-water. "Well," he said, "it's an . . . improvement."

The pale young Nobody nodded slowly, swallowing with exaggerated care. "It's progress." she admitted hoarsely.

The Dusk floated in the middle of the room, upside-down, trying to wedge its noodly arms into the cracks between Merlin's floorboards. It now sported an explosion of brilliant red hair.

"Does it always work like that?"

Namine shrugged. "I've never Dusked anyone before."

Leon nodded slowly, still staring at the semi-sentient monster that was beginning to resemble Axel one feature at a time.

"Why the hair?"

The blonde witch made a noncommittal noise that meant she didn't understand either. "How's Roxas?" she asked, after a moment. The Dusk looked up sharply, but forgot why, and went back to trying to pry up Merlin's floor.

"He's asleep. How'd he get his memories back? I thought they were gone for good."

Again, Namine shrugged, and drained her glass of water, crunching the last ice-cube with a certain amount of relish. "I should get back to work."

Leon nodded, glanced one last time at the Axel-Dusk, and left. He decided, on a whim (if Leon could be said to have whims), to check on Roxas.

He was only half surprised to find that he was not in his room.

"Great." Leon muttered to himself, trying to stifle the headache that was surfacing just beneath his right eyebrow. "Again."

"Leon?" The voice came from behind him. Leon turned so fast he blurred, and the gunblade seemed to materialize in his hands, he drew it so fast. Behind him stood Roxas, looking puzzled.

"Oh." said Leon, letting the gunblade fall to a less aggressive position. "Roxas."

"Were you looking for me?"

"Yes. Er . . . Namine's making progress with Axel."

"Oh." said Roxas, clearly not impressed or interested. "Leon, can you tell me something?"

"Sure." said Leon, holstering his gunblade behind his back.

"Who's Sora?"

Leon was surprised; he had been under the impression that Sora and Roxas were separate entities, neither with knowledge of the other. Roxas' asking gave him the uneasy feeling that the universe was about to implode.

"He's . . . um. . . ." How could he possibly explain this?

"You don't know, do you." Roxas said tonelessly.

"No, I knew him." Leon objected. "He's just . . . hard to describe."

"I have time." Roxas persisted, leaning casually against the far wall of the hallway. Leon pressed his fingertips to his eyebrow again; this was _not_ going to help with his headache.

"Sora was a Keyblade master. _The_ Keyblade master, when I knew him. He came from these little islands out in the middle of nowhere-"

"Destiny Islands," Roxas muttered under his breath. Leon was taken aback.

"That was their name, right. Anyway, he fought off a lot of Heartless, rescued the eight Princesses of Heart, and sealed the door to Kingdom Hearts."

"Sounds like a regular hero."

"Depends on who you ask. He was really just a . . . a nice kid. I don't know what happened to him after he sealed Kingdom Hearts. That was the last anybody heard of him, or Goofy and Donald."

"Who?"

"His friends. They were always with him. From King Mickey's castle, believe it or not."

"Does anyone know where _they_ are?"

Leon considered this. "I don't," he said slowly, "but I'd bet someone at the castle would know."

"Mickey's castle?"

Leon nodded. "Why the sudden interest?"

Roxas shrugged, obviously eager to conceal his motivation. "No reason. Thanks, Leon. Do you know where I can find Cid?"

Indicating the expanse of hallway to his left, the taller man replied, "He's usually in the front room, with the computer. If he's not there, he's at the castle, working on the mainframe."

"Thanks." Roxas said shortly, and dashed off.

Belatedly, Leon thought he probably shouldn't have told him that.


	14. The Gummi Man

"Cid?"

"What the Hell you want?"

Roxas almost jumped straight back out the door and ran all the way back to Merlin's house in town. He'd known Cid could be grumpy, but this was anger, not grump. He steeled his nerves and took another step into the computer room of Hollow Bastion's castle.

"Um, I need a favor."

The 40-some-odd gummi proctor wheeled around in his rolling office chair to glare at Roxas, a piece of straw dangling from one downturned corner of his mouth, the wrinkles around his eyes almost obscuring his eyes themselves. Suddenly, his expression changed, and he cracked a grin, all the wrinkles reversing direction until his whole face crinkled with the smile. "Hey Roxas! What the Hell do you want?" This time, it was merely a friendly question.

"Um, I need a gummi ship." said Roxas, still worried that Cid would revert to the sour mood of a few seconds before. Cid leapt to his feet, startling Roxas into taking a step back.

"Well, you've come to the right place!" he cried. "I can setcha up with somethin' good, for sure. Whattaya need, speed, power, guns? You name it, you got it, kid!" His face suddenly fell. "You _do_ know how to fly a gummi, don'tcha?"

"Um, not _exactly_-"

"Then what the Hell d'ya want one for? Huh? Just feel like crashin' one of my ships for fun?"

"No, that's not it at all-"

"So you expect me to teach you how to fly one? No _way_. You think I don't got better things to do?"

"No, I'm sure you do, just-"

"Stop your stammerin' and talk sense, boy!"

"I'm going to look for Sora!"

Silence fell, more terrifying than any wrath of Cid's could possibly be. Roxas glared up at the older man, expecting to see annoyance or anger, but instead finding surprise and- was that sadness?

"Why didn'tcha say so?" he asked, and clapped Roxas on the shoulder. "Come on, I got a good distance ship that'll last you long enough to visit every world there is and all the asteroids in between, if you feel like it. Come on, don't got all day! You need to get trained up. Just 'cause you're lookin' for Sora don't mean you get to crash one of my ships!"

Astounded, Roxas allowed himself to be led down to the gummi hangar, where the brightly-colored, blocky, unwieldy spacecraft were suspended in miniature magnetic fields of zero-gravity. Cid led him down the line to a yellow and green ship with a sharply pointed nose cone, four large engines, and at least a hundred laser cannons strapped to the wings.

"Falcon Model Two." Cid said proudly, patting the springy plastic hull with affection. "She's not the best, but she's pretty damn good. Come on in, I'll show you how to fly her."

Roxas was then introduced to the navigation computer, the steering column with pitch, roll, and yaw controls, the brakes (all four of them), the targeting and weapons systems, and the seatbelt. Roxas liked that there was a seatbelt.

"So where exactly are you plannin' on goin'?" Cid asked, once he had given Roxas the quick guided tour.

"Mickey's castle." Roxas replied, a little uncomfortable talking after all this time listening to Cid go on and on about his gummi ship. It seemed like a breach of protocol. "Leon said someone there might know where Sora went."

"Leon? _Leon_ told you that? What the Hell would Leon know about it? Here, I'll give you his gummi log, and you can see where he went last."

Roxas looked around for a book, but Cid merely tapped a few commands into the computer.

"There ya go. Everywhere Sora went is in here now." He tapped the console with one finger, twice. "That oughta help a lot more than _Leon._"

Roxas skimmed over the logs at first, then looked more closely, wondering if he had read correctly. "But this says the last place Sora went was _here._"

"Here?" said Cid. "Move over, lemme see." In turn, Cid peered at the logs. "Well fry me up and call me a chicken, it sure was. Maybe you better listen to Leon, after all. He might be onto somethin' with that whole Disney Castle thing."

"But Sora never went there."

"Nope, but that's where Goofy and Donald came from, and wherever Sora goes, they go. Could be somebody there knows somethin'."

"The king?"

Cid laughed in Roxas' face, which was not much fun. "Hell, kid, hadn't anybody told you anythin'? King Mickey's gone, too! Everybody lookin' for Riku done varnished."

"Who's Riku?"

"Just go to the castle. I don't feel like explainin' no more." And, with a tired wave, shaking his head, Cid left, and shut the door of the gummi ship behind him.

Roxas, at a loss for what else to do, banged his head on the wall a few times. Then, since nothing else presented itself (except a headache), he selected "Disney Castle" from the available destinations on the gummi computer, checked that there was fuel in the tanks and that the lasers were charged (which Cid had shown him how to do only minutes before), and pressed the big green button that said "GO."

Instantly, the whole ship dropped out from under him, and he wished he'd bothered to fasten his seatbelt.


	15. Like Love to Hatred Turned

Leon ran into the gummi hangar only a few seconds too late, just in time to hear Cid yell, "Hoo-ee!" and laugh raucously as he watched Roxas' gummi ship plummet through the floor.

"You let him go?" Leon demanded, seizing Cid by his shoulder and spinning him around. "Why would you do that?"

"Hey Leon! Did you see that sucker take off? Kid's prob'ly green to the gills!" And he laughed again, loudly.

"He's going to get _killed._" Leon insisted, shaking Cid roughly and resisting the urge to slap him.

"Not in that ship." said Cid, sobering a little. "Best shields this side of Midgaar. I didn't tell him that, but that'll just make him more careful. Hopefully it'll keep him from wrecking my ship."

"I don't mean in the ship, I mean at Disney Castle! The place has been _crawling_ with Heartless since Mickey left. He's in no state to fight them."

Cid bravely fought down the impulse to comment that this was the most emotion Leon had ever shown. Ever. "Aw, Hell, Leon. The kid can take care of himself. Besides, the queen's still there, ain't she? She ain't quite as helpless as she looks. He'll be peachy."

"And stop talking like that. You're not fooling anyone."

Cid rolled his eyes and switched his chewing straw to the other side of his mouth. "Look, would you calm down? I ain't given' any of my ships to you, on account of what you did to the last one." Could that possibly be a hint of shame on Leon's face? Nope. It was Cid's imagination. "He'll be fine."

"That's what you said about Sora." Leon snapped, and stalked from the room.

Roxas had found out that he didn't actually need to steer the ship, and this had made things much simpler, and less bumpy. Additionally, he had found that there was food on the ship, for which he was infinitely grateful; he felt like he hadn't eaten in days, and wasn't sure this was not, in fact, the case. His memory was still patchy, at best, when he thought back to before he had been snatched by the Organization and imprisoned with Namine.

A bright red laser bolt streaked past the window, half-blinding him and startling him into dropping his pudding, and he ran to the controls. There was a large contingent of Heartless ships ahead- Roxas didn't know how the little buggers could fly space ships, but that wasn't important- directly between him and Disney Castle, which he could just barely make out in the distance.

"Damn it." he said, drastically understating the situation, and searched for the weapons controls, wishing he had paid more attention to Cid's tour of the ship. After almost a minute of fruitless searching, and two direct hits to the gummi's forward shields, Roxas gave up and hit the controls as hard as he could, pressing as many buttons as possible in one go. A laser fired off a quick burst of twenty pulses in a second, and Roxas searched eagerly for the button that had done it. Unfortunately, the next Heartless bolt that struck the ship passed right through the shield and smashed a blackened crater into the stubby port wing.

"What the Hell!" Roxas cried, still frantically pushing random buttons. To his utter dismay, one of the little readouts was calmly flashing, "Shields Disabled" in happy green letters. He said some words that were not age-appropriate and should not be repeated, ever, by anyone, and then continued mashing buttons, now not only trying to fire the lasers, but to raise the shields once more. It didn't seem to be working.

Luckily for Roxas, the next button he happened upon reinstated the ship's shields, and shortly after that, he remembered that the firing controls were on the steering joysticks. He leapt into the pilot's chair and squeezed off a hundred and twenty laser pulses per cannon for a full minute, clearing the space between him and the castle, at least for a moment. He couldn't help but smile. How often do you get the chance to fire a sub-machine laser gun from a space ship?

His enjoyment was short-lived, as the Heartless rallied around his ship and started shooting at him again, and his attention was immediately focused not on sub-machine laser guns, but on not getting killed, which was a lot less fun, and was so occupied for the next five or six minutes until he managed to dock at Disney Castle.

Disembarking, he found how truly terrifying silence could be. His knees and hands were still shaking from the pugnacious journey there, and his head rang with the after-sounds of laser fire. He took a moment to look over the Falcon Model Two. It wasn't exactly broken, just a little damaged; scorched here and there, a piece missing from this wing, an odd crook in that one, smoke rising from the cannons, that sort of thing. But the silence was really starting to unnerve him.

For some reason, he had thought Disney Castle would be buzzing with life, bustling and busy, couriers and servants dashing to and fro, carrying messages and running errands. At the very least he had expected security, knights in shining armor guarding the gummi dock with pikes held at the ready. He walked slowly through the deserted grey halls of the shipyard, staring around in wonder at the enormous, motionless gears, the gummi-traffic control towers empty and dark, the shadowed hallways and empty docking ports, and he listened to the silence with a growing sense of apprehension. Something was definitely wrong here, he just didn't know what it was.

Roxas emerged into the bright sunlight of a green, topiary-laden courtyard, filled with flowers of colors of headache-inducing intensity, divided into looping fourths by gemstone-paved paths, hinging around a small, grass-covered pagoda with a large King-Mickey-shaped bush on top. Still, the silence was deafening. Nothing moved, nothing breathed, not even a whisper of wind stirred the still garden.

Until the tell-tale sound of a Heartless materialising shattered the silence into hundreds of tiny pieces, along with Roxas' strained nerves. The little thing had popped up only a few feet from Roxas' face, a potato-shaped thing with a trumpet for a mouth, making possibly cute little honking noises as it hopped up and down. There was a sound like breaking glass, and the Keyblade was in Roxas' hand, as cold and heavy as it had ever been.

"Glad you could make it." Roxas muttered.

Just then, thirty other Heartless popped out of the air around him, and promptly launched themselves at his head.


	16. The Plot Finally Thickens

The courtyard was not so green as it had been, nor so lovely. The gemstone walkways were smashed into razor-sharp pieces, the grass was trampled and torn, the flowers were splattered with the black blood of the Heartless. Roxas finally lowered his Keyblade, then leaned on it, for he was exhausted. There had seemed no end to the black-bodied little devils, and he must have been fighting them for half an hour straight. At last, they seemed to have come to an end, or gotten wind of the fact that Roxas was indiscriminately killing all of them, or had gotten bored and just wandered off. Roxas didn't want to go up into the halls of the castle. He had learned, at some point, that Heartless liked to lurk behind corners. He wasn't sure how he knew- as far as he could remember, he had only ever seen white wraiths- but somehow these creatures were familiar to him, and he already knew their habits quite well. So it was with a great deal of resignation that he crossed the blackened, cracked, and otherwise thoroughly despoiled courtyard and plodded up the sweeping, white-marble stairs that led into the main body of the castle. As he stepped in from the sunlight, he found that the stairs here, in the shade, were carpeted in red velvet. Roxas rolled his eyes at the excess and scored a deep gash in the soft fabric, exposing the marble beneath. He had half expected to see simple granite, or even wood, but apparently the fabric had a use beyond covering up shoddy castle-building, though what it was, he could not guess.

As he approached the corner, he felt his breath coming faster, his muscles growing tense, the Keyblade growing hot in his hands. He could almost feel it vibrating with anticipation. If it had been a dog, it would have been snarling with its hackles raised. He almost felt like shushing it, but that would alert any lurking Heartless to their presence. He was nearly grateful for the marble stairs and their velvet carpeting, for marble does not creak like wood does, and the soft fabric muffled the sound of his footfalls. It could do nothing, however, for the rustling of his breath through his lungs.

_This is ridiculous,_ Roxas thought, broke into a run, and rounded the corner screaming like a berserker with the Keyblade held high over his head. Unfortunately, all this came to nothing, because there were no Heartless around the corner.

"Oh, come on." said Roxas, letting his battle-stance fall into a disappointed slouch.

_Then_ the fifty Heartless decided to appear from the stonework, squeezing through cracks, prying themselves off the floor, even dropping from the ceiling, antennae twitching, and all turning their bulbous heads with their bulbous yellow eyes toward Roxas and his Keyblade.

"Oh, come _on!"_ Roxas cried, and leapt into the fray before any of the black-bodied little monsters got the jump on him. He could have sworn the Keyblade laughed, or at least whooped.

There were a lot more than fifty Heartless waiting in the wings, and Roxas figured this out fairly quickly; every time he killed one, two more would appear in its place, although not within striking range. At some point he found out that the Keyblade could and would spit fire in a scorching ring around him, and that the Heartless did not like this. Very soon after, he found that it would only perform this trick three times in a row before giving up and leaving him to fight hand-to-hand.

He probably could have handled all the Heartless, even if there had been three hundred of them, and even if they had been much larger, tougher types. He never got the chance to find out, however, mostly because of the _other_ thing he found out about Heartless.

An interesting fact: if you cut off their heads, their sticky black blood went absolutely _everywhere_; in this case, straight into Roxas' eyes.

With an unrepeatable curse, he lashed out blindly with the Keyblade while trying to scrub the stinging substance from his eyes. This was no use. Even when he had removed most of the blood from his face, his eyes seemed glued shut, and burned as though they had been skewered on red-hot needles. He put out his left hand, which was covered in Heartless blood and also beginning to sting and itch, and stumbled along the hallway, trying to find a wall so he would have something to put his back against. One of the Heartless struck him with its thin, electrically-charged arm, sending a painful shock down his side. Roxas yelped and spun around, lashing out blindly with his Keyblade and hitting nothing. Another black monster struck his leg, and he turned again, catching this one a glancing blow on the side of its large, round head.

But by then, the other Heartless had caught on, even with as little brainpower as they seemed to have. Roxas was constantly assaulted from behind and either side, and every time he lashed out with the Keyblade he either struck empty air or caused very little damage to the Heartless. They, on the other hand, were making very short work of him. The repeated shocks from their thin limbs were beginning to seriously cripple his nervous system; his legs would not respond as quickly, his arms twitched, and lights fired in the blackness behind his burning eyes. Letting loose a scream of frustration, Roxas set to the Heartless with renewed fervour, striking out at nothing, not even waiting for one to attack him before he swung for it, merely fighting blindly in the hopes of hitting something.

He did hit something, but it wasn't a Heartless; in fact, it was the soft marble wall, and his Keyblade stuck in it like an elephant in tar. It was at this point that Roxas just about gave up, but not without imparting a few choice words to the massive crowd of Heartless that surrounded him.

"My word!" someone cried in a high, piercing voice. "Come on, run!"

A tiny, gloved hand grabbed his, and he was being pulled through the darkness about as fast as he could jog by what seemed to be a pair of pattering little feet wearing quite a lot of crinoline.

"The Keyblade-!" Roxas stammered, but by that time a very large-sounding door had boomed shut behind him, and he was standing in a very cold room with his rescuer and someone who was sweeping.

"Oh, don't worry about that. It'll come back. Oh dear, what _has_ happened to your eyes? Oh, you poor thing. Just one moment. Hey, Broom, fetch me some water, would you, please? One bucket will do. Here, come on, sit down a moment, you must be exhausted."

The tiny hand with the pattering feet and crinoline dress led him a few steps (a few of _his_ steps, that is; she took almost three times as many as he did) and gently turned him around before pulling him downward. He found a soft chair ready to accept him, and he had not quite realised how very tired he was until he sank into the soft, pillowy cushions. His legs were still jittering, and his right arm would twitch every time he inhaled, but the attacks of the Heartless seemed to have done no lasting damage, and the effects soon faded. It only reminded him of how badly his eyes hurt. He could not imagine his sight surviving an onslaught of such pain.

"Let's have a look now. This might hurt a little."

One of the small hands pried open one of his eyes, which hurt even worse than keeping them closed, but he was pleased to see, literally, the small, blurry person standing before him. It occurred to him that she had very strange hair, but she gave him no time to wonder about this.

"Watch this finger." she said, holding up her pointer finger. She moved it left, right, up, down, and around in circles, and although it was very blurry, and moving his eye hurt, he passed her test.

"Good. You're going to be all right. Ah, here's Broom. Come here, Broom, that's right, bring it over here. This will hurt."

That was his only warning before she took a cold, soaking wet cloth and jammed it into his eye. Roxas cried out and tried to pull away, but she was holding his face in her other little hand, and the chair had decided to actually hang on to him with its plush cushions.

The washing of his eyes only took five minutes or so, but it was excruciating. At the end of it, his caretaker said, "There, that should do it. Open your eyes at let me check."

Roxas opened his eyes. Everything was still quite blurry, but it was no longer painful to look at. It was at that point that he saw the broom quietly sweeping in the corner, quite without anyone to sweep it, and the mildly flushed mouse-woman standing before him in a red, many-layered dress. She was wearing a crown of gold that sat just between her ears, and her eyes were large and bright. Her gloves, he presumed once white, were covered in black Heartless blood. Roxas' own hands didn't look too different. Subconsciously, he tried to wipe them off on his trousers, which only got his trousers dirty.

"Um, Queen Minnie?" Roxas hazarded, wondering if he should be bowing.

"That's me." she said, with a smile. "And who are you?"

"Roxas." he said. "Um, your majesty."

"Hello, Roxas. I'm terribly sorry about those wretches out there. Can't seem to get rid of them, since Mickey left. But you should be all right, now. They never come in here. Oh, Broom?" she said, turning to look at the animate broom behind her. "Would you take this away, please? Thank you so much, dear. You can leave the bucket and all down there."

The broom, which Roxas now noticed had two beefy arms sticking out of its handle about halfway up, hefted the bucket, which was now full of black, oily water, and swished out of the room, lumbering like a trained bear.

"You had a near escape." the queen told Roxas, once the broom had gone. "They almost got you."

"Um, yeah. Thanks for, um, rescuing me. Um, listen, your majesty-"

"Oh, drop the formalities. No one's here but us."

"Um, right. Er, the thing is, I'm looking for someone. A-and back in Hollow Bastion, they said you might know where he is."

"I might." Minnie said cagily. "But how will I know if you don't tell me who it is?"

"Well, it's just . . . never mind. I'm looking for . . . for Sora."

A look of deep sadness overcame Minnie, to the point that even her ears and pencil-thin tail drooped. The light went out of her gleaming eyes. "Poor, poor Sora. He was such a good boy."

"Was?" said Roxas, feeling suddenly very sick and very afraid and very, very cold.

Minnie nodded sadly. "He was killed in Castle Oblivion. Poor Donald only just made it back. . . ."

"What?" said Roxas, lost and very confused. "You mean . . . you mean he's dead?"

"I'm afraid so, Roxas. I'm terribly sorry you came all this way just for such terrible news. I still hope that Mickey may be out there, somewhere, with Riku and Goofy, but I'm never quite sure."

"Riku? Who's Riku? And who's Goofy? For that matter, who's Donald?"

"Friends of Sora's. Riku ran away and Sora went looking for him. Goofy and Donald helped him look. They made it all the way to Castle Oblivion, and they were so terribly close to destroying that horrible Organization, when. . . ."

"What happened to Donald, if Goofy and Riku and Mickey are still out there?"

Minnie shook her head and pattered off to a chair that sat behind a writing desk. The chair seemed to kneel for her, and settle down once she was sitting in it. After the walking, armed broomstick, Roxas shouldn't have been surprised, but he was.

"Donald was my best magician. My very best. That's why I sent him to find Mickey, along with Goofy."

"I thought you said they were looking for Riku?"

"Riku and the King went many places together. I got the impression they were very good friends. Anyway, it doesn't matter much, not for now, and I feel you are in a bit of a hurry."

"A bit." said Roxas, thinking of Axel, back at Merlin's house, even then probably still stuck as a mindless Dusk and being mobbed by the denizens of Hollow Bastion.

"Donald was badly injured when he made his way back. He probably would have recovered if not for the Heartless in the hallway. He only just managed to tell me what had happened to Sora before . . . before. . . ." A tiny sob escaped her lips, and two identically small tears slid down her round cheeks.

"I'm so sorry." said Roxas, although he wasn't. He couldn't care less about this magician and his (admittedly tragic) end. He didn't have time. There were more lives at stake, he felt sure. Something felt distinctly wrong with the universe, and the feeling grew stronger all the time.

"Yes. Well. It's nothing compared to what poor Daisy went through. . . . But I'm off-track again. I'm afraid I don't know what became of Mickey and Goofy and Riku after that, as I've been stuck here ever since, and no news has come in or out for . . . oh, weeks now. I'm afraid that at this rate, the worlds will never be sealed, and the Heartless will continue to grow stronger, and that horrible Organization will be able to do whatever they want with their Nobodies, although goodness only knows what they want them for." She wiped her sleeve across her eyes, sniffled once, and looked up at Roxas. "Sora had a mission, you know. A mission that could only be completed by a Keyblade master. So far as I knew, he and Mickey were the only ones, until you showed up." She was suddenly on her feet, pattering over to Roxas' chair, which scooted forward almost a foot to meet her. She grabbed his large, calloused hands in her tiny ones and looked pleadingly into his eyes. "Roxas, would you finish Sora's work? Of course, it's possible he isn't fully dead. He was turned into a Heartless once, and came back, but I don't know if it will work again. If not, someone has to seal off the worlds and stop the Organization, and Mickey and Riku may be . . . may not be able to. Would you try? For me, for all of us, would you try to finish what Sora started?"

Roxas looked into her eyes, fully intending to say no, and found he couldn't. "I'll try, Queen Minnie." he said. "But that's all I can promise."

"Thank you." she said, smiling ever so slightly. "Thank you, so much. You have no idea how much this means to me."

"But where do I start?" Roxas asked, wishing he could find some gracious way to make her let go of his hands. "Where did Sora leave off?"

"I couldn't tell you," Minnie admitted, looking away, "but I know who could."

"Who?" Roxas demanded, filled with such burning determination as he had never felt before.

"His killer." said Minnie, turning away. "Axel."


	17. Axel and the Truth

It felt like he had been sleeping for a very long time, perhaps several months. His head hurt ridiculously and he was both parched and hungrier than he had ever been in his life. His arms and legs wanted to keep sleeping, it seemed, because they just twitched and ached when he tried to move them.

"Finally. Looks like you're all back."

"Namine?" Axel croaked, prying open his eyes. He was in a small, hot room that smelled funny, and Namine was sitting primly near him, looking oddly vulnerable with the dark circles under her normally bright eyes. "Where's Roxas?"

"He went out for a while," Namine half-lied. Axel looked surprised and tried to sit up. "He's fine." she continued, escalating to a complete lie.

"What happened?"

"You got turned into a Dusk. It's all right, I put you back together."

Axel actually managed to sit up. The room around him was a mess; there was broken glass and colored liquid all over the floor, scuffs on the wall, smudges on the window.

"Oh, not again." he grumbled, rubbing his head. "If you do that to me _one more time_, I'll kill you. Got it memorized?" He glanced around the room more thoroughly, his clear green eyes flicking to and fro like emerald dragonflies. "Did I do all this?"

"Yes." Namine sighed, smiling half-sincerely. "It's all right. I'm sure Merlin won't hold it against you."

"Merlin, right, yeah. Listen, seriously, where's Roxas?"

"I told you, he went out for a little while. He'll be-"

"Don't you lie to me, Namine." Axel threatened, smirking. If it was possible to convey anger in a smile, he did it. "The last thing I knew, before you tore me to bits and stitched me together again, was that Roxas was gone. Missing. Kidnapped. So either you tell me where he is, or I'll find someone who will. The Superior, for instance."

"Axel, the Superior doesn't have Roxas."

"Then who does?"

"No one! Look, it's a long story. The point is, Roxas went off under his own power, this last time, anyway. He had the Keyblade with him."

"Where did he go?"

"You're in no state to go looking for him."

"_Where_ did he _go?_"

"Oh, fine. You can go get yourself killed, see if I care. Disney Castle."

"Why in the Hell would he go _there?_"

"He was looking for Sora."

"But Sora's dead!"

"He probably knows that by now. Cid can loan you a gummi ship, if you ask nicely and promise not to destroy it."

"And weren't you going to bring him back?"

"It isn't necessary. You only asked me to do that to keep Roxas from dying. Well, Roxas isn't dying anymore. Congratulations. You might want to get under way soon, in case he moves on before you get there. He's been gone almost four hours, now, and the trip there is only about one."

"Wait, if he went to Disney Castle. . . ."

The Universe, with its impeccable sense of dramatic timing, chose that moment to propel Roxas through the door in a flurry of anger, the Keyblade humming in his hand.

"You killed Sora." he growled at Axel, not even noticing that Namine was in the room. His voice shook with fury.

"Roxas, thank God!" the redhead cried, leaping from his bed and stumbling over to the door in as straight a line as he could manage, embracing Roxas before the younger boy could process what was going on and hit Axel with the Keyblade. "I thought you were dead!"

"What. . . ? Don't . . . change the subject!" Roxas cried, extracting himself from Axel's embrace. "You murdered him! What'd he ever do to you, huh? What'd he ever do to anybody?"

"Look, Roxas, I'm sorry, okay? It was a mistake. The important thing is, you're okay! Right? Come on, sit down, you look like Hell."

Roxas jerked his arm out of Axel's grasp before the redhead's fingers could close on it. "Stop it! You're not sorry, I can tell! Why didn't you ever say anything? Why did you . . . how could you lie to me? All this time, how could you lie to me? And Donald! You killed Donald, too!"

"Now _that's_ not true-"

"How many other people have you killed? Come on, say it! I'm through with you lying to me! How many people have you killed?"

"Roxas," Axel said, slumping into a stance of defeat, "it's not my fault, okay? I was the Organization's attack dog for a while, I admit it. The job wasn't exactly great, you know what I mean? But I had to do it."

"What?" said Roxas, lowering the Keyblade and looking thoroughly confused. "Wait, this doesn't make any sense."

"Sit down." Axel invited, dropping himself onto the recuperation bed and indicating the space next to him. Both of them seemed to have forgotten Namine. "Look, how much do you remember about the Organization?"

"Everything." Roxas said. "How could I forget? Everyone but you, Dem, Luxord, Xaldin, Xigbar, Saix and the Superior were killed before I got there. The rest of us did our best to rebuild Kingdom Hearts _which_, by the way, is a terrible idea and I'm still glad I quit."

"Do you remember how the others were eliminated?"

"Um, kind of. They were all killed in the line of duty."

"Okay, well, that's bullshit."

"Axel," Namine warned.

"Sorry. Anyway, only a few of them were 'killed in the line of duty,' as you so properly put it. Two weren't. Vexen and Zexion."

"_You_ killed them?"

"That's right. Marluxia told me to kill Vexen to prove my loyalty to his coup, and, Hell, I didn't like the guy anyway. He was a creep."

"And Zexion? _He_ never turned traitor, did Marluxia 'have you kill' him, too?"

"Hey, since I betrayed the traitors, technically I was still in the right. Zexion was an accidental casualty. I was helping . . . someone else. It's not important."

"What about the rest of them?"

"The rest? Fft, Sora killed 'em, of course."

Roxas's diamond-blue eyes got very, very wide. "He _what?_"

"Yeah. Nobody ever told you your Other was the Number One enemy of the Organization? Jeez, kid, I knew they kept you in the dark, but that's just _dumb._"

"What are you talking about?"

"Sorry. Anyway, Sora killed a bunch of Organization members, including Marluxia. After that-"

"Not that. What's an Other?"

"Ah, don't make me explain this! Fine. Sora died- ah, before I ever met the kid. He turned into a Heartless for a while. When that happened, the . . . heart-less shell leftover was you. Sora came back, anyway, somehow," he shot a glance at Namine, "but you were still hanging around out there. The Organization found you, and you know the rest. But before then, Sora killed a bunch of us. Okay? Nobody liked the kid. Got it memorized?"

"Stop saying that." Roxas snapped. "But how did I end up in Twilight Town?"

"Sora's memories got taken apart." Namine put in. "Actually, I took them apart, under Marluxia's orders. He was trying to turn Sora into his puppet- long story, don't bother. Some of the memories . . . got loose, and ended up in you. A person named DiZ tried to resurrect Sora afterwards, with my help. Once he figured out that you had some of Sora's memories inside you, he built a fake Twilight Town where he could keep you under control until he figured out how to . . . take you apart."

"And that's why I had to kill Sora." Axel put in, staring deep into Roxas's eyes. "I tried everything else first, believe me. I couldn't stop them from the inside, I couldn't rescue you, so I waited until they were distracted and I snuck into their lab. While they were chasing a false alarm, I snuck into the hibernation bank and . . . well, he was sleeping, so it wasn't hard."

"Coward." Roxas spat.

"I'm not proud of this, Roxas, you understand? I _had_ to. They were going to kill you, and there was no other way I could save you."

"But Donald! Why did you kill Donald?"

"I _told_ you, I didn't kill him. Last I saw, he was still fast asleep in his little cryogenic egg. I might be a killer, but I'm not a psychopath, got it- er, okay?"

"But Minnie said-"

"Queen Minnie? That mouse has cheese for a brain. She only ever pays attention to the King, so she makes a pretty poor witness, if you ask me."

"Nobody did."

"Hah, 'nobody.' We're all Nobodies here, Roxas."

"I hate you." Roxas said, grumpily staring at the far wall. It was hard to be really angry at someone who had saved your life, even if it _was_ by murdering a blameless kid.

"That's okay." said Axel, and embraced Roxas for the second time. "I'm just glad you're all right. You had me worried there, kid."

"Shut up." said Roxas, but he didn't try to pull away.

Eventually, Namine gave up on them remembering she was in the room and went ahead and left, opening a small portal into the way between worlds.

She walked in darkness for a time, but not for too long. Soon she emerged into eerie blue light and the hum of machines, and two dark figures, one seated and one standing, near a bank of consoles turned to regard her with sparkling golden eyes.

"Well?" said the seated one.

"He confessed." she said. "Sora's dead."

The standing figure turned away and put a dark hand to its dark face.

"This _is_ problematic." the seated man said- it was obvious he was male, his voice was so deep and caramel-smooth. "Who will combat the Organization? Who will seal the worlds?"

"Is there a way to bring him back?" the standing one asked, in a voice only slightly less deep. "Could another Heartless have been made?"

"It's possible." Namine conceded. "But we'll have to find it, quickly, before someone kills it."

"And Roxas?" the seated one asked. "What of him?"

Namine swallowed. "_If_ Sora's Heartless is found, and _if_ I can reclaim enough memories from it to make a good start, I . . . I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to bring Sora back."

"Which would be. . . ?" said the seated man.

Namine took a deep breath. "All right, DiZ, if I have to spell it out. Yes, I'm prepared to kill him."


	18. New Horizons, New Worlds

Roxas woke up because he was too hot. He peeled the covers off of himself and sat up, running a hand through his hair in a vain attempt to correct his bed-head. The room was still dark, apart from a small glass jar full of glowing green liquid in the corner. Roxas stood and went to the window. In the distance, he could see the streetlights of Hollow Bastion's main market still glimmering in the dark, although the sky had taken on a dim, pinkish-grey hue behind the faces of the stars. Roxas turned his head and looked back at the bed. Axel was right where he had left him, sitting at the footboard with his head leaned against the wall, cushioned by his mane of brilliant red hair, chest rising and falling slowly as he slept. Roxas recalled many things about Axel, and many feelings associated with him, but he could muster none of those feelings now. As he looked upon Axel, it was as though he looked upon a stranger; he felt nothing.

But suddenly, as he turned back to the window, something tugged at him on the inside, and he looked again at the man sleeping on the foot of his bed. He felt guilty, he realized, at what he was going to do. After all the trouble Axel had gone to, after everything he had done for Roxas, it felt wrong to just leave him there, without so much as an explanation. Roxas shook his head, eyebrows pulling together in annoyance. Some things just had to be done. After all, he had promised.

"Roxas?" The youngest Nobody turned, seeing Axel's green eyes squinting blearily at him, glittering from the darkness. "Whass goin' on?"

"Nothing." Roxas replied, taking the few steps back to the bed. "I had some bad dreams. Go back to sleep."

"Mmkay." said Axel, and shut his eyes, taking a deep breath and settling back against the wall. Roxas kissed him lightly on the forehead, and stood and watched until he was sure Axel was fully asleep.

Then he slipped on his shoes, slid his backpack out of the closet, and crept out the door, shutting it behind him without so much as a click.

The gummi port in the dark was nerve-wracking, with the sharp shapes of the silent ships looming out over their launch pads, the cold blue striplights in the floor lending everything a sickly, ghostly cast, shedding just enough light to enhance the shadows. Roxas had memorized the sequence of gummis in the hangar so that he would be able to find the one Cid had taught him to fly; his was fourteenth on the left. Although he kept careful count of the ships to that side, his eyes flicked back and forth between the looming ships, expecting at any moment a hoard of Heartless and Dusks to bubble from the darkness like a geyser of tar. He even began to suspect the ships themselves of moving when he took his eyes off of them, so ominous was their bulk in the dark. His skin crawled and cold sweat trickled down his neck. As he walked down the black, deserted hangar, he began to get the distinct feeling that something was amiss. His pace slowed, he stopped, looked around. There was no one there. He could have sworn that someone was watching him, that he'd heard footsteps that were not his echoing behind him through the dark. He shook his head and convinced himself that his mind was playing tricks on him, that the huge, empty building had rattled him and he was overreacting.

"Ah." he whispered, approaching the fourteenth ship on the left. It was still burned in places, but the crumpled wing had been replaced and the chip in the other wing had been roughly patched. He sighed, hitching his backpack higher on his shoulder, and moved to the boarding ladder.

And all the lights came on, in a jerky wave that began at one end of the hangar and crawled to the other. Roxas fell off the ladder, he was so surprised, and landed on his backpack. The Keyblade was in his hand by the time he got up, squinting and blinking in the sudden brightness.

"Hey Roxas." came a familiar voice, echoing down the rows of gummis. "That was some fall. Didn't mean to scare you."

"What do you _want?_" Roxas demanded, as Axel came into view, hand entangled in his red explosion of hair, scratching the back of his head as he did when he was embarrassed or nervous.

"You didn't _really_ think I'd let you go alone, did you?"

"You don't care about me. You don't care about anyone but yourself."

"Now _that's_ not true, and you know it. Come on, kid, you nearly got yourself killed at Disney Castle-"

"It was a fluke."

"And, let's face it, I kicked your ass in Twilight Town."

"I was having a bad day."

"Look, even Sora wasn't doing this alone. He had the good sense to take friends with him. There's no shame in it."

"Leave me alone or I'll beat you to a pulp and make you leave me."

Axel stared at him, one eye narrower than the other, as though sizing him up. "You probably could. But you know I'd just come after you."

"You're obsessed."

"Call it that if you want. But you're not going alone, Roxas. It's dangerous and pointless. You have some mission or whatever you got from a crazy mouse-queen, fine. I'm all for destroying the Organization, in fact. Sealing the worlds, I could care less about, but I'll tag along for the chance to take a shot at Saix. But you shouldn't go by yourself. If you die, then there will be _no one_ to do the job. There aren't any other Keyblade masters, kid. It's just you. And I know I can't take on the Organization by myself; I've tried."

"I don't want you. You're a murderer and I don't trust you."

"Oh, come _on._"

"Shut up! You killed Sora in cold blood, and you might do it to anyone."

"Some people need to die, Roxas." Axel said quietly, looking away. "Some people just don't deserve to take up space anymore."

"You're not coming with me, and that's final."

"Fine. Go get yourself killed. Waste of time, if you ask me."

"Nobody did."

"Hah, nobody. You know, Roxas, I liked Sora. He had spunk. The first time I remember enjoying _anything_, feeling anything all the way down to the deepest part of me, like I had a heart, was when Sora was in Castle Oblivion. He taught me that you don't need a heart to feel. I owed him a lot, Roxas, and I didn't want to kill him. But it was the only way I could save you. I would do anything for you, Roxas. Even something that made you hate me forever."

"Just go away." Roxas sighed. He could never win an argument with Axel, and he knew it.

"We're coming with you, kid." Axel said, and smiled, and tapped the side of his head with one finger. "Got it memorized?"

"We?" said Roxas.

Namine stepped out from behind Axel, looking shy but pleased with herself. "If there's anyone who can help you take on the Organization, it's me." she said. "I turned Axel into a Dusk. If worst comes to worst, I could do it to another of them." She smiled, fully and genuinely. "Besides, if I leave you and Axel alone, you'll probably kill each other."

"Oh, ha ha." said Roxas, letting the Keyblade dematerialize. In truth, it would be nice to have other people around, to keep the silence at bay. It was only in silence that the Keyblade spoke to him. "Fine. You can come. But I've got my eye on you." he added to Axel. "One wrong move and I'll put the Keyblade through your head."

"Nah." said Axel. "Namine won't let you. Now, are we going to stand here talking all night, or are we going to go save the universe?"

"All aboard." said Roxas, and climbed the ladder, followed by Axel, who was followed by Namine. Thus it was that neither of them saw the sad look of resignation on her face, the guilt and hesitation in her eyes.

Roxas fired up the gummi ship, laughed when Axel and Namine screamed at its sudden drop from the hangar, and steered them off to new horizons, new worlds just waiting to be saved.

Sora, he thought, would have been proud.

THE END


End file.
